Emphasizing Sportsmanship in Youth Sport

This essay will examine the shift in cultural norms and social expectations surrounding youth sport and how emphases on sportsmanship in youth sport programs can help salvage some of the wholesome values sought after by parents when signing up their children into sport leagues. There is no major overhaul in sight for youth sport organization and certainly little desire to eliminate sports from the young lives of boys and girls across the country, so how can we work to extend some of the virtues of sport craved by parents for their kids? By emphasizing sportsmanship

Can Intertemporal Choice Experiments Elicit Time Preferences for Consumption? Yes

The most popular experimental method for eliciting time preferences involves subjects making choices over smaller, sooner amounts of money and larger, later amounts of money. Under some theoretically possible configurations of preferences and procedures, the discount rates inferred from these choices could lead to misleading inferences about time preferences for consumption. Using a direct empirical test, we show that those configurations of preferences are empirically implausible.

The Independence Axiom and the Bipolar Behaviorist

Developments in the theory of risk require yet another evaluation of the behavioral validity of the independence axiom. This axiom plays a central role in most formal statements of expected utility theory, as well as popular alternative models of decision-making under risk, such as rank-dependent utility theory. It also plays a central role in experiments used to characterize the way in which risk preferences deviate from expected utility theory. If someone claims that individuals behave as if they "probability weight" outcomes, and hence violate the independence axiom, it is invariably on the basis of experiments that must assume the independence axiom. We refer to this as the Bipolar Behavioral Hypothesis: behavioral economists are pessimistic about the axiom when it comes to characterizing how individuals directly evaluate two lotteries in a binary choice task, but are optimistic about the axiom when it comes to characterizing how individuals evaluate multiple lotteries that make up the incentive structure for a multiple-task experiment. Building on designs that have a long tradition in experimental economics, we offer direct tests of the axiom and the evidence for probability weighting. We reject the Bipolar Behavioral Hypothesis: we find that nonparametric preferences estimated for the rank-dependent utility model are significantly affected when one elicits choices with procedures that require the independence assumption, as compared to choices with procedures that do not require that assumption. We also demonstrate this result with familiar parametric preference specifications, and draw general implications for the empirical evaluation of theories about risk.

Inflation and the U.S. Defense Budget

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Cameras in the United States Supreme Court: Judicial Transparency & the Obligation Thereof

The sources utilized in this thesis each serve a particular function in relation to the theoretical framework. They are organized by the extent to which they contribute to the three dominant disciplinary approaches found throughout the work. The established literature referenced in the first section contributes to the historical summary of the Supreme Court’s forward progression toward the public disclosure of its work. Many sources used therein are primary, as they are meant to portray contemporary accounts of the Court’s steps as they occur in time. The sources used in the second section help to develop transparency as a demanded intangibility—a commodity of sorts. Hopefully, understanding transparency as a resource for the public will allow for the reader of this thesis to make sense of the concept’s variable application in all parts of the federal government. In the third section, the sources used are distinct in that they are meant to help conceptualize the potential consequences of implementing cameras in the Supreme Court. Identifying the public’s stance on issues related to the Supreme Court itself is necessary to any speculation regarding the consequences. This is because they affect the public both directly and indirectly. In this final section, much of the literature also includes pre-fabricated ideas about what could potentially happen if the institution were to tolerate televised coverage of proceedings. In my own assessment, I am skeptical of the reasoning in positions for both the affirmative and the negative, but I ultimately side with those—and with others in part—whom I feel better represent my ideas regarding the Court’s future. This summary view is expressed in the second subsection of Chapter III and elaborated in the conclusion of this thesis. In our democracy (a constitutional republic) the value of transparency cannot be overstated, as it provides a monitorial means through which the electorate can ensure their interests are maintained by those who make decisions on their behalf. Nonetheless, whether the obligation of transparency should be taken to apply throughout the government co-equally—and specifically, in the nation’s highest court—has become subject to disagreement. Though the benefits of increasing transparency in the U.S. Supreme Court are indeed significant, doing so by permitting video cameras for court proceedings in an era of considerable ideological polarization may also yield unwanted consequences that should discourage efforts toward any implementation policy at this point in time. To properly assess and respond to the debate regarding cameras in the Court, this work begins with a historical discussion, covering a near-comprehensive timeline of the institution’s progression in public disclosure. The purpose of this is to demonstrate the extent to which the Court has already become the most transparent branch of the federal government. This thesis then proceeds to evaluate the potential outcomes of camera implementation while making sense of the societal context in which the debate persists. The idea of government transparency is a theme discussed throughout the work, as it is the fundamental demand that underlies the relevant debate. This thesis endeavors to address the debate regarding whether video cameras ought to be allowed in the United States Supreme Court. Prior to joining the relevant discussion, I provide a comprehensive history of the Court’s steps toward increased transparency, beginning with the institution’s inception. This section highlights the evolving role of transparency in the context of institutional independence—a context that persists emphatically today. The following section describes the role and degree of transparency in the elected branches of the federal government. It contrasts the obligation of disclosure in these branches with that of the Judiciary and also seeks to identify the propriety of selective disclosure in each of the three. Then, this thesis focuses on the prospect of video camera implementation. I have chosen to dissect the positive and negative consequences that might occur should the Court lift the current device ban. In the final section, I compare the consequences, then proceed to argue that the probable negatives cause concerns that should outweigh the potential benefits. I believe that camera implementation can happen without compromising the Supreme Court’s ability to function properly, but only if society changes. In this section, I discuss the societal polarization that makes a policy allowing cameras so dangerous, and I detail the developments that must take place if the Court is to progress safely

Inducing Risk Neutral Preferences with Binary Lotteries: A Reconsideration

We evaluate the binary lottery procedure for inducing risk neutral behavior. We strip the experimental implementation down to bare bones, taking care to avoid any potentially confounding assumption about behavior having to be made. In particular, our evaluation does not rely on the assumed validity of any strategic equilibrium behavior, or even the customary independence axiom. We show that subjects sampled from our population are generally risk averse when lotteries are defined over monetary outcomes, and that the binary lottery procedure does indeed induce a statistically significant shift towards risk neutrality. This striking result generalizes to the case in which subjects make several lottery choices and one is selected for payment.

Can Intertemporal Choice Experiments Elicit Time Preferences for Consumption? Yes

The most popular experimental method for eliciting time preferences involves subjects making choices over smaller, sooner amounts of money and larger, later amounts of money. Under some theoretically possible configurations of preferences and procedures, the discount rates inferred from these choices could lead to misleading inferences about time preferences for consumption. Using a direct empirical test, we show that those configurations of preferences are empirically implausibl

Making a U.S. Digital Service Academy Work

The article of record as published may be found at https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/making-a-u-s-digital-service-academy-work

Eye-Tracking and Economic Theories of Choice Under Risk

We examine the ability of eye movement data to help understand the determinants of decision making over risky prospects. We start with structural models of choice under risk, and use that structure to inform what we identify from the use of process data in addition to choice data. We find that information on eye movements does significantly affect the extent and nature of probability weighting behavior. Our structural model allows us to show the pathway of the effect, rather than simply identifying a reduced form effect. This insight should be of importance for the normative design of choice mechanisms for risky products. We also show that decision response duration is no substitute for the richer information provided by eye-tracking

Cumulative Prospect Theory in the Laboratory: A Reconsideration

We take Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT) seriously by rigorously estimating structural models using the full set of CPT parameters. Much of the literature only estimates a subset of CPT parameters, or more simply assume CPT parameter values from prior studies. Our data are from substantial laboratory experiments with undergraduate students and MBA students facing real incentives and losses. We also estimate structural models from Expected Utility Theory, Dual Theory, Rank-Dependent Utility (RDU) and Disappointment Aversion for comparison. Our major finding is that a majority of individuals in our sample locally asset integrate. That is, they see a loss frame for what it is, a frame, and behave as if they evaluate the net payment rather than the gross loss when one is presented to them. This finding is devastating to the direct application of CPT to these data for those subjects. Support for CPT is greater when losses are covered out of an earned endowment rather than house money, but RDU is still the best single characterization of individual and pooled choices. Defenders of the CPT model claim, correctly, that the CPT model exists “because the data says it should.” In other words, the CPT model was borne from a wide range of stylized facts culled from parts of the cognitive psychology literature. If one is to take the CPT model seriously and rigorously then it needs to do a much better job of explaining the data than we see her