Discrimination and nepotism: the efficiency of the anonymity rule.

The paper considers two categories of discrimination: 'discrimination against' and 'discrimination in favor', which Becker coins 'nepotism'. The paper develops an experimental test to distinguish between these two types of discrimination. The experiment compares the behavior towards individuals of different groups with the behavior towards anonymous individuals (those having no clear group affiliation). We illustrate the two attitudes by considering two segmented societies: Belgian society, with its linguistic segmentation between the Flemish and the Walloons, and Israeli society, where we focus on religious versus secular segmentation. In Belgium, we find evidence of discrimination against. Both the Walloons and the Flemish treat people of their own group in the same way as anonymous individuals while discriminating against individuals of the other group. In contrast, the behavior of ultra-orthodox religious Jews in Israel can be categorized as nepotism: they favor members of their own group while treating anonymous individuals in the same way as secular individuals. The distinction between the different types of discrimination is important in evaluating the effectiveness and the efficiency consequences of anti-discriminatory legislations.Discrimination; Efficiency; Effectiveness; Legislation;

Evaluating market consolidation in mobile communications

We study the dual relationship between market structure and prices and between market structure and investment in mobile telecommunications. Using a uniquely constructed panel of mobile operators' prices and accounting information across 33 OECD countries between 2002 and 2014, we document that more concentrated markets lead to higher end user prices. Furthermore, they also lead to higher investment per mobile operator, though the impact on total investment is not conclusive. Our findings are not only relevant for the current consolidation wave in the telecommunications industry. More generally, they stress that competition and regulatory authorities should take seriously the potential trade-off between market power effects and efficiency gains stemming from agreements between firms

PSS32 Impact of dry eye on everyday life (Ideel) - Symptom bother: Estimating cut-off scores for dry eye severity groups

The aims of the study were to estimate score ranges associated with dry eye severity based on the Impact of Dry Eye on Everyday Life (IDEEL) Symptom Bother (SB) domain, and to evaluate the overall performance of the SB domain

On the Schoenberg Transformations in Data Analysis: Theory and Illustrations

The class of Schoenberg transformations, embedding Euclidean distances into higher dimensional Euclidean spaces, is presented, and derived from theorems on positive definite and conditionally negative definite matrices. Original results on the arc lengths, angles and curvature of the transformations are proposed, and visualized on artificial data sets by classical multidimensional scaling. A simple distance-based discriminant algorithm illustrates the theory, intimately connected to the Gaussian kernels of Machine Learning

Modifying the Rebound: It depends! Explaining Mobility Behaviour on the Basis of the German Socio-Economic Panel

We address the empirical question to which extent higher fuel efficiency of cars affects additional travel and how this behavioural aspect is modified by additional variables. The data set used to estimate a theoretical model of the rebound effect covers two panel waves, 1998 and 2003, taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). To take full advantage of the information in the data available, and to avoid problems due to possible selection effects, we estimated an unbalanced two-wave random effects panel model. Our results suggest that in line with the rebound hypothesis, there is a negative effect of car efficiency on the kilometers driven. That is, the lower the fuel consumption, the larger the driven distance. However, contrasting recent empirical literature about the rebound effect in the transportation sector, this seems to be true only for cars with a consumption of more than roughly eight liters per hundred kilometers. In addition, we find a positive diesel effect, which implies that owning a diesel engined car, has a positive effect on the driven distance. Both effects can be interpreted as support for the rebound hypothesis, although not in a simple linear way. Moreover, it can be shown that some "soft" variables such as certain attitudes towards the environment tend to amplify this non-linear rebound effect. Our results support the general direction of the rebound effect on households travel activities. But because of the remaining political relevance of the rebound effect, they also highlight the importance of accounting for additional behavioural variables which tend to influence individual mobility behaviour. Hence, the classical interpretation of the rebound as a linear effect of advances in fuel economy on individual travel has to be questioned

Leptin Affects Life History Decisions in a Passerine Bird: A Field Experiment

BACKGROUND: Organisms face trade-offs regarding their life-history strategies, such as decisions of single or multiple broods within a year. In passerines displaying facultative multiple breeding, the probability of laying a second clutch is influenced by several life-history factors. However, information about the mechanistic background of these trade-offs is largely lacking. Leptin is a protein hormone produced by white fat cells, and acts as a signal between peripheral energy depots and the central nervous system. In addition, leptin affects cells at all levels of the reproductive axis and plays a critical role in regulating the allocation of metabolic energy to reproduction. As such, it is possible that leptin levels influence the decision of whether or not to invest time and energy into a second clutch. Accordingly, we expect a treatment with exogenous leptin to result in an increased number of second broods. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: At a later stage during the first brood, female great tits were treated either with long-term leptin-filled cholesterol pellets (the experimental birds) or with pellets containing only cholesterol (the control birds). We found that leptin-treated females were significantly more likely to have a second brood and that the earlier females were more likely to lay a second clutch than the late females. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: As both timing of first brood and treatment with leptin were important in the decision of having multiple broods, the trade-offs involved in the breeding strategy most likely depend on multiple factors. Presumably leptin has evolved as a signal of energy supply status to regulate the release of reproductive hormones so that reproduction is coordinated with periods of sufficient nutrients. This study investigated the role of leptin as a mediator between energy resources and reproductive output, providing a fundamentally new insight into how trade-offs work on a functional basis