Many people never switch telecoms provider; what is different about switchers? ESRI Research Bulletin 2018/7

Many consumers have never switched telecoms company, despite the efforts of regulators to encourage shopping around and to make switching easier. A significant number of consumers need to be willing to compare offers and to consider switching to better ones if the benefits of competition are going to be spread more widely. In particular, if there are identifiable groups of consumers who are unlikely to consider switching, they may end up with worse deals than other consumers. This research investigated which consumers are more inclined to switch providers of broadband, mobile phone and landline services. It looked not only at individual characteristics like age, family structure and income, but also at characteristics of the service and how it is used, such as whether it is ‘bundled’ or whether people in the household use smart phones to browse the internet. The study also recorded how much money people think they might save by switching and whether people had experienced ‘bill-shock’ (an unexpectedly high bill)

The Misperception of Inflation by Irish Consumers

Perceptions and forecasts of inflation have the potential to impact on a range of economic outcomes. We reveal large, systematic overestimation of inflation by Irish consumers, which varies by social group. In contrast to previous work in this area, our models suggest the upward bias and the variation by social group should be considered substantially separate phenomena. We also offer evidence that inflation misperceptions are linked to attitudes and intentions with respect to consumption and saving and, hence, are likely to affect household decision-making. The findings therefore raise issues regarding the relationship between financial literacy and consumer behaviour.

The framing of options for retirement: Experimental tests for policy. ESRI WP604, December 2018

We hypothesise and confirm a substantial framing effect in relation to whether people opt for an annuity on retirement. Two laboratory experiments were conducted in collaboration with a national pensions regulator. Individuals demanded a higher annuity rate when pensions were initially conceived of as an accumulated lump sum – a “nest egg” or “pension pot” – than when they were initially conceived of as retirement income. The effect was recorded using both a matching and a choice procedure. Effect sizes implied more than a doubling of demand for annuities at market rates. While mindful of the need for caution in generalising from hypothetical laboratory studies, the findings have potentially strong policy implications. The framing of pension products in marketing materials and disclosures may have substantial effects on financial risks borne in later life

Development of a Hydrogeological Model of the Borrowdale Volcanics at Sellafield

International audienceThis work has arisen out of recent developments within the radioactive waste research programme managed by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution, UK (HMIP)*, to develop an integrated flow and transport model for the potential deep radioactive waste repository at Sellafield. One of the largest sources of uncertainty in model predictions, is the characterisation of the hydrogeological properties of the underlying strata, in particular, of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group (BVG) within which the repository is to be located. Analysis of the available borehole data (that released by the proponent company, Nirex, by December 1995) for the BVG formation has indicated a dual regime consisting of flow within faults and flow within the matrix (or an equivalent porous medium containing micro-fractures). Significant relationships between permeability, depth and the presence and orientation of faults have been identified; they account for a variation of up to 6 orders of magnitude in mean permeability measurements. This can be explained in part by the effect of the orientation of the current maximum principal stress directions within the BVG: however, it is likely that permeability is also dependent on the existence of fracture families, which cannot be effectively identified from the data currently available. These analyses have enabled considerable insight to be gained into the dominant features of flow within the BVG. The conceptual hydrogeological model derived here will have a significant effect on the outcome and reliability of future radionuclide transport predictions in the Sellafield area

The perception of stereoscopic surfaces

Human stereoscopic vision depends upon the slightly different geometrical projections of the world to the two eyes. Horizontal disparities between the eyes produce the sensation of depth. But what is stereopsis for. One theory is that stereopsis extracts the spatial derivatives of horizontal disparity for the perception of shape and surface orientation. Discrimination tasks are devised here which compare sensitivity to the slant and curvature of stereoscopic surfaces with sensitivity to relative depth, both within and across tasks. Contrary to previous studies, where cues other than the second derivative were available, best Weber fractions for disparity curvature disrimination by these methods are no better than 15%. This compares with 6% for disparity gradient and 3.5 % for relative disparity. Discrimination of the orientation, size (or separation) and position of cyclopean corrugated surfaces reveals these stimulus attributes are discriminated as accurately as their counterparts in the luminance domain, provided the spatial scale is quite coarse. Other analogous results include the independence of spatial discriminations on relative disparity, the meridional anisotropy for cyclopean orientation discrimination and a range of relative disparity effects analogous to classical simultaneous contrast effects in luminance vision. It was also found, contrary to a previous study, that cyclopean textures could be segregated pre-attentively. These findings taken together imply that disparity is processed by spatial filters in a similar manner to luminance. This view of stereoscopic vision allows a fresh look at an old phenomenon: the stereoscopic slant anisotropy. An explanation is proposed on the basis of interactions between cyclopean spatial filters and a representation of disparity upon which they act. If sensitivity is a guide to function, stereopsis is for estimating the position, location, size and orientation of nearby objects, but probably not for estimating their shape

Interventions to increase physical activity in disadvantaged communities: A review of behavioural mechanisms. ESRI Working Paper No. 646 December 2019

Physical inactivity is now a significant driver of health and social inequalities among socioeconomically disadvantaged communities and poses a major challenge to policymakers, worldwide. Although a vast amount of research has focused on designing and evaluating interventions to increase physical activity, there remains little consensus on which interventions are likely to work. In this narrative review, we build on previous reviews by not only examining what interventions tend to work but by trying to understand why certain interventions tend to work, while others do not, through the lens of behavioural science. We present a behavioural framework through which the existing body of physical activity research could be viewed, in order to identify potentially effective mechanisms that would be likely to work in their intended domain. Our analysis finds that while there is evidence that the physical and educational environment matter for increasing levels of physical activity, interventions are more likely to be successful where they involve a social component. We conclude that a behaviourally informed physical activity intervention would thus employ a set of focused educational and socially-mediated behavioural mechanisms, within an appropriate physical environment

Motivating social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic: An online experiment. ESRI Working Paper No. 658 April 2020

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic will save lives. We tested communication strategies to promote social distancing via an online experiment (N = 500) commissioned by Ireland’s Department of Health. A control group saw a current informational poster. Two treatment groups saw similar posters with messages that highlighted: (i) the risk of transmission to identifiable persons vulnerable to COVID-19; (ii) the exponential nature of transmission. We then measured judgements of behaviours previously identified by focus groups as “marginal” (meaning that people were not sure whether they were advisable, such meeting others outdoors, or visiting parents). We recorded intention to undertake behaviours and stated acceptability of behaviours. Our hypotheses, that both treatments would increase participants’ caution about marginal behaviours, were preregistered (i.e. lodged with an international organisation for open science before data collection). Results confirmed the hypotheses. The findings suggest that the thought of infecting vulnerable people or large numbers of people can motivate social distancing. This has implications for communications strategies. The stud

Bayesian hierarchical model for the prediction of football results

The problem of modelling football data has become increasingly popular in the last few years and many different models have been proposed with the aim of estimating the characteristics that bring a team to lose or win a game, or to predict the score of a particular match. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical model to fulfil both these aims and test its predictive strength based on data about the Italian Serie A 1991-1992 championship. To overcome the issue of overshrinkage produced by the Bayesian hierarchical model, we specify a more complex mixture model that results in a better fit to the observed data. We test its performance using an example of the Italian Serie A 2007-2008 championship