Using the compensating and equivalent variations to define the Slutsky Equation under a discrete price change

In our experience, all textbook presentations of the Slutsky Equation under a discrete price change use a compensation scheme based on the compensating variation. Our students have sensed this convention is arbitrary in that they have asked, why consider this compensation scheme, and not one based on the equivalent variation? The present paper outlines how one might address this matter analytically, and then discusses how our findings provide a new insight into the Giffen Paradox.Compensating Variation

RESERVATION PRICES AND PRE-AUCTION ESTIMATES: A STUDY IN ABSTRACT ART

Using a sample of European abstract art we show that reservation prices constrain pre-auction estimates in such a way that we are more likely to observe overestimation relative to the midpoint of the estimation window. At the same time, we also find that the low pre-auction estimate is a more powerful, accurate and precise predictor of hammer prices than the high estimate.Art Auctions, Abstract Art, Pre-auction Estimates, Reservation Price, Bias

A simple test for the violation of the non-satiation axiom under uncertainty: The theory

The validity of most axioms which underlie the expected utility model has been the object of intense empirical testing. These include the independence, betweenness, transitivity, monotonicity, reduction, and non-satiation axioms. The sole, present-day test for the non-satiation axiom is predicated on the first-degree stochastic dominance theorem. This paper outlines the theory for a new, alternative test – one that is predicated on a mean-variance-preserving transformation of a one-trial binomial distribution.Von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Function, Expected Utility Hypothesis, Non-Satiation Axiom, Binomial Trial, Mean-variance-preserving transformation

Hedonic Models and Pre-Auction Estimates: Abstract Art Revisited

We investigate the predictive power of hedonic models compared to that of pre-auction estimates in the context of art auctions. We use a panel data consisting of abstract paintings and a methodology that employs the estimates as instrumental variables in the framework of a hedonic regression model. The results suggest that hedonic models have no better predictive power than that of the estimates. Pre-auction estimates appear to fully account for the available public information on works of art.

The student evaluation of teaching: its failure as a research program, and as an administrative guide

This paper points up the methodological inadequacy of the "student evaluation of teaching" as a research program. We do this by reference to three, interrelated arguments. The first is that the student evaluation of teaching cannot claim to capture the wisdom of a crowd because, as a research program, it fails to meet Surowiecki's conditions for the existence and articulation of the wisdom of a crowd. The second argument extends the first, by stating: (a) the "student evaluation of teaching" research program fails to provide the methodological controls needed to differentiate cause from effect, or put differently (b) the methodological underpinnings of this research program is tantamount to the misapplication of a closed-system paradigm to an open social system. The third argument has two parts. These are that this research program is predicated on: (a) a false analogy between the workings of a business and a university, and therefore (b) on a mischaracterization of the student-professor relationship. These three arguments, these three failures, suggest that the "student evaluation of teaching" research program is methodologically ill-conceived and incoherent, and therefore cannot, with any credulity, serve as a guide to the administration and governance of a university.Student evaluation of teaching, validity, biases, fallacies

Carbohydrate gel ingestion significantly improves the intermittent endurance capacity, but not sprint performance, of adolescent team games players during a simulated team games protocol

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of ingesting a carbohydrate (CHO) gel on the intermittent endurance capacity and sprint performance of adolescent team games players. Eleven participants [mean age 13.5 ± 0.7 years, height 1.72 ± 0.08 m, body mass (BM) 62.1 ± 9.4 kg] performed two trials separated by 3–7 days. In each trial, they completed four 15 min periods of part A of the Loughborough Intermittent Shuttle Test (LIST), followed by an intermittent run to exhaustion (part B). In the 5 min pre-exercise, participants consumed 0.818 mL kg−1 BM of a CHO or a non-CHO placebo gel, and a further 0.327 mL kg−1 BM every 15 min during part A of the LIST (38.0 ± 5.5 g CHO h−1 in the CHO trial). Intermittent endurance capacity was increased by 21.1% during part B when the CHO gel was ingested (4.6 ± 2.0 vs. 3.8 ± 2.4 min, P < 0.05, r = 0.67), with distance covered in part B significantly greater in the CHO trial (787 ± 319 vs. 669 ± 424 m, P < 0.05, r = 0.57). Gel ingestion did not significantly influence mean 15 m sprint time (P = 0.34), peak sprint time (P = 0.81), or heart rate (P = 0.66). Ingestion of a CHO gel significantly increases the intermittent endurance capacity of adolescent team games players during a simulated team games protocol