AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE INTERVAL APPROACH FOR ESTIMATING RISK PREFERENCES

Previous attempts to measure agricultural decision makers' risk preferences have obtained values of the Arrow-Pratt coefficient in the range of approximately -.0002 to .0012. The recently developed interval approach for elicitation of risk preferences was used to estimate risk attitudes for Minnesota swine producers. Constant and decreasing absolute risk aversion were predominant among the sample. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents were in the Arrow-Pratt interval of -.0002 to .0003. A discriminant analysis using producer attributes and three estimated risk intervals concluded that 50 percent of the respondents could be classified in the correct risk interval.Risk and Uncertainty,

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The psycholinguistic characteristics of young Indian and Métis students in northern Saskatchewan schools

The Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was administered to twenty-one females and twenty-seven males seven years of age. Eight of these Indian and Metis females and nine of the males attended a rural school, while seven females and eight males attended classes in residential schools. The remaining six females and ten males went to school in a city. Profiles of differential abilities were made for each sex and school type. When the sub-tests were averaged according to the value of the mean scaled scores obtained by the total group, the ascending order was auditory association, grammatic closure, verbal expression, auditory closure, auditory decode, visual association, verbal decode, auditory memory, manual expression, visual closure, sound blending and visual memory. No significant differences existed between the males and the females. The urban school students performance on the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was superior to the performance of rural and residential school students

Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century

Sometime in the last 250 years, economists lost sight of the full range of human feeling, thinking, and knowing in everyday life. Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith\u27s model of sociality can re-humanize twenty-first century economics by undergirding it with sentiments, fellow feeling, and a sense of propriety - the stuff of which human relationships are built. Integrating insights from The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations into contemporary empirical analysis, this book shapes economic betterment as a science of human beings.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/economics_books/1025/thumbnail.jp

Fair and Impartial Spectators in Experimental Economic Behavior

Our primary purpose in this article is to draw upon the literature of classical liberal economy to show how it informs and is informed by the results from experimental economics. Adam Smith\u27s first great book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, serves as our chief source of insights for understanding and interpreting modern laboratory research in terms of the conventions that govern human conduct in personal exchange.~ At the same time, we wish to demonstrate how today\u27s economic experiments elucidate a reading of Adam Smith

Equilibrium Play in Voluntary Ultimatum Games: Beneficence Cannot Be Extorted

One robust result in experimental economics is the failure to observe equilibrium play in the ultimatum game. A heretofore unnoticed feature of the game is that neither player voluntarily chooses to play the game. Motivated by Adam Smith’s proposition that beneficence—like that of non‐ equilibrium play in the ultimatum game—cannot be extorted by force, we offer the responder the opportunity to opt out of the game for a mere $1 payoff for both players. We observe high rates of equilibrium play with highly unequal splits when responders choose to play such ultimatum games with both fixed and variable sums

Exchange and Specialisation as a Discovery Process

In this article we study the performance of an economy that can support specialisation if the participants develop and follow some system of exchange. We define a closed economy in which the participants must discover the ability to exchange, implement it, and ascertain what they are comparatively advantaged in producing. Many of our participants demonstrate the ability to find comparative advantage, capture gains from trade and effectively choose production that is consistent with the choices of others. We explore various treatments to provide insight into the conditions that foster the growth of specialisation and exchange within this weak institutional framework

Changes in Teacher Salaries Under The Arkansas LEARNS Act

The LEARNS Act: Increased the state’s minimum teacher salary from $36,000 to$50,000, Guaranteed all teachers a minimum raise of $2,000, and Removed the minimum teacher salary schedule and relaxed other salary schedule requirements in state law. Before LEARNS, starting teacher salaries in almost all school districts were below the new minimum salary of$50,000. The average entry-level teacher salary for those holding a bachelor’s degree was about $38,000, with 39$36,000. Starting teacher salaries under LEARNS are now more equally distributed, with minimal variation across districts. This school year, 97% of districts pay beginning teachers with bachelor’s degrees the new minimum of $50,000. LEARNS significantly reduced the negative and significant association between starting teacher salaries and higher rates of district poverty. However, more differentiation in pay across districts reappears as teachers gain experience, and it remains advantageous to work in more urban districts that continue to offer higher salaries to their experienced teachers. Because experience is a predictor of teacher quality, this could have future implications for the equitable distribution of quality teachers across the state. The LEARNS Act also provides substantially more funding to rural and higher-poverty districts. Although LEARNS made some positive improvements to teacher salaries, other incentive programs and grow-your-own initiatives will likely still be needed to recruit and retain high-quality teachers in rural and high-poverty districts

Changes in Teacher Salaries Under The Arkansas LEARNS Act

The LEARNS Act: Increased the state’s minimum teacher salary from $36,000 to$50,000, Guaranteed all teachers a minimum raise of $2,000, and Removed the minimum teacher salary schedule and relaxed other salary schedule requirements in state law. Before LEARNS, starting teacher salaries in almost all school districts were below the new minimum salary of$50,000. The average entry-level teacher salary for those holding a bachelor’s degree was about $38,000, with 39$36,000. Starting teacher salaries under LEARNS are now more equally distributed, with minimal variation across districts. This school year, 97% of districts pay beginning teachers with bachelor’s degrees the new minimum of $50,000. LEARNS significantly reduced the negative and significant association between starting teacher salaries and higher rates of district poverty. However, more differentiation in pay across districts reappears as teachers gain experience, and it remains advantageous to work in more urban districts that continue to offer higher salaries to their experienced teachers. Because experience is a predictor of teacher quality, this could have future implications for the equitable distribution of quality teachers across the state. The LEARNS Act also provides substantially more funding to rural and higher-poverty districts. Although LEARNS made some positive improvements to teacher salaries, other incentive programs and grow-your-own initiatives will likely still be needed to recruit and retain high-quality teachers in rural and high-poverty districts