7,214 research outputs found
Libertarian Paternalism Is Not An Oxymoron
Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler assert that while the idea of libertarian paternalism might seem to be an oxymoron, it is both possible and legitimate for private and public institutions to affect behavior while also respecting freedom of choice. Often people's preferences are ill-formed, and their choices will inevitably be influenced by default rules, framing effects, and starting points. In these circumstances, a form of paternalism cannot be avoided. Equipped with an understanding of behavioral findings of bounded rationality and bounded self-control, libertarian paternalists should attempt to steer people's choices in welfare-promoting directions without eliminating freedom of choice. Sunstein and Thaler argue that it is also possible to show how a libertarian paternalist might select among the possible options and to assess how much choice to offer. This paper gives examplesfrom many areas, including savings behavior, labor law, and consumer protection.
Constraining the Axion Portal with B -> K l+ l-
We investigate the bounds on axionlike states from flavor-changing neutral
current b->s decays, assuming the axion couples to the standard model through
mixing with the Higgs sector. Such GeV-scale axions have received renewed
attention in connection with observed cosmic ray excesses. We find that
existing B->K l+ l- data impose stringent bounds on the axion decay constant in
the multi-TeV range, relevant for constraining the "axion portal" model of dark
matter. Such bounds also constrain light Higgs scenarios in the next-to-minimal
supersymmetric standard model. These bounds can be improved by dedicated
searches in B-factory data and at LHCb.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; v2: to match version to appear in PR
Reference Distorted Prices
I show that when consumers (mis)perceive prices relative to reference prices,
budgets turn out to be soft, prices tend to be lower and the average quality of
goods sold decreases. These observations provide explanations for decentralized
purchase decisions, for people being happy with a purchase even when they have
paid their evaluation, and for why trade might affect high quality local firms
'unfairly'
Defense mechanisms of empathetic players in the spatial ultimatum game
Experiments on the ultimatum game have revealed that humans are remarkably
fond of fair play. When asked to share an amount of money, unfair offers are
rare and their acceptance rate small. While empathy and spatiality may lead to
the evolution of fairness, thus far considered continuous strategies have
precluded the observation of solutions that would be driven by pattern
formation. Here we introduce a spatial ultimatum game with discrete strategies,
and we show that this simple alteration opens the gate to fascinatingly rich
dynamical behavior. Besides mixed stationary states, we report the occurrence
of traveling waves and cyclic dominance, where one strategy in the cycle can be
an alliance of two strategies. The highly webbed phase diagram, entailing
continuous and discontinuous phase transitions, reveals hidden complexity in
the pursuit of human fair play.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Physical
Review Letter
‘Better off, as judged by themselves’:A reply to Cass Sunstein
This paper is a reply to Sunstein’s comment on my paper ‘Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?’ The central claim of that paper was that, in their book Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein switch between two different interpretations of the ‘better off, as judged by themselves’ criterion, and that consistent use of one or other interpretation would have blunted the persuasive power of the book. In this reply, I defend that claim against Sunstein’s counter-arguments
Algebraic methods for dynamic systems
Algebraic methods for application to dynamic control system
The cost of anchoring on credit-card minimum repayments
About three quarters of credit card accounts attract interest charges. In the US, credit card debt is 2,539.7 billion of consumer credit. In the UK, credit card debt is £55.1 billion of £174.4 billion of consumer credit. The 2005 US Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act and the 2003 UK Treasury Select Committee's report require lenders to collect a minimum payment of at least the interest accrued each month. Thus people are protected from the effects of compounding interest. But including minimum payment information has an unintended negative effect, because minimum payments act as psychological anchors
Galaxy clustering with photometric surveys using PDF redshift information
Photometric surveys produce large-area maps of the galaxy distribution, but
with less accurate redshift information than is obtained from spectroscopic
methods. Modern photometric redshift (photo-z) algorithms use galaxy
magnitudes, or colors, that are obtained through multi-band imaging to produce
a probability density function (PDF) for each galaxy in the map. We used
simulated data to study the effect of using different photo-z estimators to
assign galaxies to redshift bins in order to compare their effects on angular
clustering and galaxy bias measurements. We found that if we use the entire
PDF, rather than a single-point (mean or mode) estimate, the deviations are
less biased, especially when using narrow redshift bins. When the redshift bin
widths are , the use of the entire PDF reduces the typical
measurement bias from 5%, when using single point estimates, to 3%.Comment: Matches the MNRAS published version. 19 pages, 19 Figure
Flood-Resilient Communities: How We Can Encourage Adaptive Behaviour Through Smart Tools in Public-Private Interaction
To achieve a more flood-resilient society, it is essential to involve citizens. Therefore, new instruments, such as tailor-made advice for homeowners, are being developed to inform homeowners about adaptive strategies in building to motivate them to implement these measures. This article evaluates if public–private interactions, such as tailored advice, change risk behaviour and therefore increase flood resilience among homeowners. The article conducted semi-structured interviews with homeowners who had received advice as well as involved experts in two case study regions in Europe: Flanders in Belgium and Vorarlberg in Austria. The results show how the tailored advice helps homeowners who are already aware of flood risks and provides them with answers on how to adapt a house. However, the tool seems to lack the ability to inform and "recruit" new groups of homeowners who are not as familiar with flood risks. As such, this article concludes that this initiative has a relatively low impact in raising flood risk awareness among homeowners but may be more successful in serving as a tool that suggests tailored property-level flood risk adaptation measures for those who are already aware. Alternatively, more automated tailored information systems might be more efficient for unaware homeowners
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