Employment chances of immigrants and their children in Germany: Does sense of personal control matter?

Labour market integration is a social process suggesting that personality traits are relevant. This paper explores whether immigrants with a higher belief in their ability to control outcomes tend to be more likely to be employed. This trait is known in psychology as the locus of control (LOC). I employ a model framework that allows LOC to depend on a set of observable determining variables. Results indicate that sense of personal control is correlated with employment probability and that there is a risk that immigrants and their children tend to have a more externalized LOC. Mother's education is a key factor correlated with the sense of personal control

Equilibrium Contracts and Boundedly Rational Expectations

We study an informed-principal framework in which the principal chooses the variables the agent is aware of. The agent fits a causal model connecting these variables to the objective probability distribution. The principal may keep her unaware of some variables so that she incorrectly extrapolates how non-equilibrium actions map into outcomes. This framework captures models of contracting with unaware agents, shrouded attributes, and overconfidence in a unified manner

Subjective Causality in Choice

An agent makes a stochastic choice from a set of lotteries. She infers the outcomes of her options using a subjective causal model represented by a directed acyclic graph, and consequently may misinterpret correlation as causation. Her choices affect her inferences which in turn affect her choices, so the two together must form a personal equilibrium. We show how an analyst can identify the agent's subjective causal model from her random choice rule. In addition, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions that allow an analyst to test whether the agent's behavior is compatible with the model

Choosing Between Causal Interpretations: An Experimental Study

Good decision-making requires understanding the causal impact of our actions. Often, we only have access to correlational data that could stem from multiple causal mechanisms with divergent implications for choice. Our experiments comprehensively characterize choice when subjects face conflicting causal interpretations of such data. Behavior primarily reflects three types: following interpretations that make attractive promises, choosing cautiously, and assessing the fit of interpretations to the data. We characterize properties of interpretations that obscure bad fit to subjects. Preferences for more complex models are more common than those reflecting Occam’s razor. Implications extend to the Causal Narratives and Model Persuasion literatures

Instrumenting gait with an accelerometer: A system and algorithm examination

Gait is an important clinical assessment tool since changes in gait may reflect changes in general health. Measurement of gait is a complex process which has been restricted to the laboratory until relatively recently. The application of an inexpensive body worn sensor with appropriate gait algorithms (BWM) is an attractive alternative and offers the potential to assess gait in any setting. In this study we investigated the use of a low-cost BWM, compared to laboratory reference using a robust testing protocol in both younger and older adults. We observed that the BWM is a valid tool for estimating total step count and mean spatio-temporal gait characteristics however agreement for variability and asymmetry results was poor. We conducted a detailed investigation to explain the poor agreement between systems and determined it was due to inherent differences between the systems rather than inability of the sensor to measure the gait characteristics. The results highlight caution in the choice of reference system for validation studies. The BWM used in this study has the potential to gather longitudinal (real-world) spatio-temporal gait data that could be readily used in large lifestyle-based intervention studies, but further refinement of the algorithm(s) is required

Essays on misspecified models

These essays examine how relaxing common assumptions affect the strategic interactions between agents. It investigates how the presence of an agent with a simplified causal model influences the contract and disclosure of information with other agents, as well as the impact of changes to the institutional settings. By theoretically modelling these choices, it aims to improve the understanding of equilibrium effects and thereby contributing to debates about the optimal design of contracts, strategic information transmission and political budget cycles and the impact of assumptions. The first chapter analyses the contract between a firm owner and a employee, when the firm cannot observe the employee's action and the employee's belief about how her action influences the contractible variable is governed by a misspecified causal model. It contributes to the existing literature by explicitly modelling the source of the employee's misspecified beliefs. This approach allows us to shed light on the variables the firm owner would want to include in the contract given the employee's mistakes as well as the intermediate variables the employee needs to include in her causal model in order to act as if she understands how her action influence the contractible variable. The second chapter examines how an informed agent conveys information to an uninformed agent when he can simultaneously influence the messages she receives and how she interprets them. This relaxes the assumption that agents always understand the meaning of messages in equilibrium. The third chapter analyses how political budget cycles change when the politician in charge can choose to call for a snap election in periods before the end of the term. This contributes to the existing literature by taking the equilibrium effects of early election into consideration and thereby the effect of the continuation value of being in office

Forecast of Herbage Production Under Continuous Grazing

The utilization of pasture is very sensitive to oscillations in herbage growth. The farmer’s daily planning involves decisions on pasture use as well as on the amount and composition of supplement feeding. In this planning, expected daily growth rate is an important factor. Often the knowledge and experience about the growth rate is first available after changes in management should have been made. A different growth rate than expected should lead to changes in the grazing area or in the supplement feeding. Therefore, a simple model of grass/clover growth under grazing and irrigated conditions was developed. From spring 2004, the model was used to compute a forecast of grass/clover growth, which has been available to Danish farmers and advisors in the online crop information system PlanteInfo (for a version in English, see planteinfo.dk/english)

EIB Working Paper 2021/12

Using macro and firm-level data, this paper investigates the complementarities between investment in different types of tangible assets such as machinery and buildings, and intangible assets such as software, training of employees, and business process improvements. It finds that investment in different assets types tends to be complementary, improving firm performance. Policy measures should address investment bottlenecks arising from market imperfections, while leaving it to the firm to find the most appropriate mix of assets

FRZB (frizzled-related protein)

Review on FRZB (frizzled-related protein), with data on DNA, on the protein encoded, and where the gene is implicated