1,694 research outputs found
The Non-Linear Cournot Model as a Best-Response Potential Game
potential function, potential game, Cournot oligopoly
On Negative Time Preference
Survey data show that subjects positively discount both gains and losses but discount gains more heavily than losses. This holds for monetary and non-monetary outcomes
Impatience, Anticipatory Feelings and Uncertainty: A Dynamic Experiment on Time Preferences
We study time preferences in a real-effort experiment with a one-month horizon. We report that two thirds of choices suggest negative time preferences. Moreover, choice reversal over time is common even if temptation plays no role. We propose and measure three distinct concepts of choice reversal over time to study time consistency. This evidence calls for an important role for anticipatory feelings and uncertainty in intertemporal behavior.negative time preferences, choice reversal, risk, time inconsistency, real-effort experiment
Constructive Preference Elicitation over Hybrid Combinatorial Spaces
Preference elicitation is the task of suggesting a highly preferred
configuration to a decision maker. The preferences are typically learned by
querying the user for choice feedback over pairs or sets of objects. In its
constructive variant, new objects are synthesized "from scratch" by maximizing
an estimate of the user utility over a combinatorial (possibly infinite) space
of candidates. In the constructive setting, most existing elicitation
techniques fail because they rely on exhaustive enumeration of the candidates.
A previous solution explicitly designed for constructive tasks comes with no
formal performance guarantees, and can be very expensive in (or unapplicable
to) problems with non-Boolean attributes. We propose the Choice Perceptron, a
Perceptron-like algorithm for learning user preferences from set-wise choice
feedback over constructive domains and hybrid Boolean-numeric feature spaces.
We provide a theoretical analysis on the attained regret that holds for a large
class of query selection strategies, and devise a heuristic strategy that aims
at optimizing the regret in practice. Finally, we demonstrate its effectiveness
by empirical evaluation against existing competitors on constructive scenarios
of increasing complexity.Comment: AAAI 2018, computing methodologies, machine learning, learning
paradigms, supervised learning, structured output
Thinness and Obesity: A Model of Food Consumption, Health Concerns, and Social Pressure
The increasing concern of the policy maker about eating behavior has focused on thespread of obesity and on the evidence of a consistent number of individuals dietingdespite being underweight. As the latter behavior is often attributed to the socialpressure to be thin, some governments have already taken actions to ban ultra-thinideals and testimonials. Assuming that people are heterogeneous in their healthyweights, but are exposed to the same ideal body weight, this paper proposes atheoretical framework to assess whether increasing the ideal body weight is sociallydesirable, both from a welfare and from a health point of view. If being overweightis the average condition and the ideal body weight is thin, increasing the ideal bodyweight may increase welfare by reducing social pressure. By contrast, health is onaverage reduced, since people depart even further from their healthy weight. Giventhat in the US and in Europe people are on average overweight, we conclude thatthese policies, even when are welfare improving, may foster the obesity epidemic.Body Weight, Diet, Obesity, Social Pressure, Underweight.
An experiment on experimental instructions
In this paper we treat instructions as an experimental variable. Using a public good game, we study how the instructions' format affects the participants' understanding of the experiment, their speed of play and their experimental behavior. We show that longer instructions do not significantly improve the subjects' understanding of the experiment; on-screen instructions shorten average decision times with respect to on-paper instructions, and requiring forced inputs reduces waiting times, in particular for the slowest subjects. Consistent with cognitive load theory, we find that short, on-screen instructions which require forced inputs improve on subjects' comprehension and familiarity with the experimental task, and they contribute to reduce both decision and waiting times without affecting the overall pattern of contributions.
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