HOW TO HELP GROUPS DEVELOP AN UNDERSTANDING OF CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES

Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Ionospheric limitations to time transfer by satellite

The ionosphere can contribute appreciable group delay and phase change to radio signals traversing it; this can constitute a fundamental limitation to the accuracy of time and frequency measurements using satellites. Because of the dispersive nature of the ionosphere, the amount of delay is strongly frequency-dependent. Ionospheric compensation is necessary for the most precise time transfer and frequency measurements, with a group delay accuracy better than 10 nanoseconds. A priori modeling is not accurate to better than 25%. The dual-frequency compensation method holds promise, but has not been rigorously experimentally tested. Irregularities in the ionosphere must be included in the compensation process

Women, the economy and the news: undeserved and underrepresented?

In 2018, the news industry found itself in the headlines when it revealed the significant difference in levels of pay between the genders, with some pre-eminent financial publications having the widest pay gaps. This provided a timely opportunity to survey 65 economic, financial, and business journalists – both men and women – working for news outlets in the UK, including the BBC and the Financial Times. The survey explored the values and working practices of business, economic and financial journalists in the UK, as well as their opinions about the gender pay gap. Results show that while women, as expected, are paid less than the men and hold fewer positions of seniority, few expressed opinions about the gender pay gap. Engaging a wide audience and a lack of resources in the industry to be able to do so are the most pressing concerns for the journalists surveyed

CAPITAL FOR THE AGRICULTURE OF THE FUTURE

Agricultural Finance,

Financial capability, the financial crisis, and trust in news media

Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 the financial media has been analysed from the perspectives of experts and far less from the audiences who consume it. This article fills this gap by exploring public consumption of financial news and their levels of satisfaction. It explores another, less researched, issue; that of financial literacy, which is a major impediment to public understanding and is weaker among women, young people and the less affluent. Consequently, the study makes the following suggestions: financial journalism needs to respond to a wide audience and provide more useful, unbiased and accessible financial news; personal finance news, which is an under-researched genre, could build financial capability levels and might improve trust between media and its audiences; and the financial media should be considered a key player by policy-makers if they want to bolster financial capabilit

A sound card based multi-channel frequency measurement system

For physical processes which express themselves as a frequency, for example magnetic field measurements using optically-pumped alkali-vapor magnetometers, the precise extraction of the frequency from the noisy signal is a classical problem. We describe herein a frequency measurement system based on an inexpensive commercially available computer sound card coupled with a software single-tone estimator which reaches Cram\'er--Rao limited performance, a feature which commercial frequency counters often lack. Characterization of the system and examples of its successful application to magnetometry are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Time Zones As Cues For Coordination: Latitude, Longitude, And Letterman

Market productivity is often greater, and leisure and other household activities more enjoyable, when people perform them simultaneously. Beyond pointing out the positive externalities of synchronicity, economists have not attempted to identify exogenous determinants of timing. We develop a theory illustrating conditions under which synchronicity will vary and identify three factors — the amount of daylight, the timing of television programming, and differences in time zones — that can alter timing. Using the American Time Use Survey for 2003 and 2004, we first show that an exogenous shock to time in one area due to non-adherence to daylight-saving time leads its residents to alter their work schedules to continue coordinating their activities with those of people elsewhere. With time use data from Australia, we also demonstrate the same response to a similar shock there. We then show that both television timing and the benefits of coordinating across time zones in the U.S. generally affect the timing of market work and sleep, the two most time-consuming activities people undertake. While these impacts do not differ greatly by people's demographic characteristics,workers in industries where we would expect more coordination outside of their local areas are more responsive to the effects of time zones.banking, market discipline