Jiří Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice

The paper explores the philosophical treatment of sacrifice in four of Jiří Menzel’s films of the 1960’s, Closely observed trains (Ostře sledované vlaky), Capricious summer (Rozmarné léto), Mr Balthazar’s death (Smrt pana Baltazara), his short film contribution to the anthology film of the New Wave, Pearls of the deep (Perličky na dně), and Larks on a string (Skřivánci na niti). The paper argues that Menzel problematizes romanticized versions of messianic sacrifice as they all too easily disregard the moral significance of mundane relations. By analysing the treatment of sacrifice in each of these films, the paper makes a case for the significance of Menzel’s treatment of sacrifice for current philosophical debates

Exclusionary Conduct, Effect on Consumers, and the Flawed Profit-Sacrifice Standard

The central thesis of this article is that the use of the profit-sacrifice test as the sole liability standard for exclusionary conduct, or as a required prong of a multi-pronged liability standard is fundamentally flawed. The profit-sacrifice test may be useful, for example, as one type of evidence of anticompetitive purpose. In unilateral refusal to deal cases, it can be useful in determining the non-exclusionary benchmark. However, the test is not generally a reliable indicator of the impact of allegedly exclusionary conduct on consumer welfare - the primary focus of the antitrust laws. The profit-sacrifice test also is prone to several significant pitfalls and often would be complex and subjective to implement in practice. As a result, relying on the profit-sacrifice test as the legal standard would lead to significant legal errors

Social Preferences: Some Simple Tests and a New Model

Departures from pure self interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of "social preferences". We conduct experiments on simple two-person and three-person games with binary choices that test these theories more directly than the array of games conventionally considered. Our experiments show strong support for the prevalence of "quasi-maximin" preferences: People sacrifice to increase the payoffs for all recipients, but especially for the lowest-payoff recipients. People are also motivated by reciprocity: While people are reluctant to sacrifice to reciprocate good or bad behavior beyond what they would sacrifice for neutral parties, they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice. Some participants are averse to getting different payoffs than others, but based on our experiments and reinterpretation of previous experiments we argue that behavior that has been presented as "difference aversion" in recent papers is actually a combination of reciprocal and quasi-maximin motivations. We formulate a model in which each player is willing to sacrifice to allocate the quasi-maximin allocation only to those players also believed to be pursuing the quasi-maximin allocation, and may sacrifice to punish unfair players.

Exchange-rate Pass Through, Openness, and the Sacrifice Ratio

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation–output trade-off and suggests that the ultimate effect of openness on the output–inflation relationship is influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we consider the impact of exchange-rate pass through and examine how pass through conditions the effect of openness on the sacrifice ratio. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how the extent of both pass through and openness can interact to influence the output–inflation relationship. Next we empirically explore the nature of these two variables and their interaction. Results indicate that greater pass through increases the sacrifice ratio, that there is statistically significant interaction between pass through and openness, and—once the extent of pass through is taken into account alongside other factors that affect the sacrifice ratio, such as central bank independence—openness fails to exert an empirically robust effect on the sacrifice ratio

Social Preferences: Some Simple Tests and a New Model

Departures from pure self interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of "social preferences". We conduct experiments on simple two-person and three-person games with binary choices that test these theories more directly than the array of games conventionally considered. Our experiments show strong support for the prevalence of "quasi-maximin" preferences: People sacrifice to increase the payoff for all recipients, but especially for the lowest-payoff recipients. People are also motivated by reciprocity: While people are reluctant to sacrifice to reciprocate good or bad behavior beyond what they would sacrifice for neutral parties, they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice. Some participants are averse to getting different payoffs than others, but based on our experiments and reinterpretation of previous experiments we argue that behavior that has been presented as "difference aversion" in recent papers is actually a combination of reciprocal and quasi-maximin motivations. We formulate a model in which each player is willing to sacrifice to allocate the quasi-maximin allocation only to those players also believed to be pursuing the quasi- maximin allocation, and may sacrifice to punish unfair players.

(WP 2009-02) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, and the Sacrifice Ratio

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation‐output trade‐off and suggests that the ultimate effect of openness on the output‐inflation relationship is influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we consider the impact of exchange‐rate pass through and how pass through conditions the effect of openness on the sacrifice ratio. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how both the extent of pass through and openness can interact to influence the output‐inflation relationship. Next we empirically explore the nature of these two variables and their interaction. Results indicate that greater pass through increases the sacrifice ratio, that there is significant interaction among pass through and openness, and—once the extent of pass through is taken into account alongside other factors that affect the sacrifice ratio, such as central bank independence—openness exerts an empirically ambiguous effect on the sacrifice ratio

Social preferences: Some simple tests and a new model

Departures from pure self interest in economic experiments have recently inspired models of "social preferences". We conduct experiments on simple two-person and three-person games with binary choices that test these theories more directly than the array of games conventionally considered. Our experiments show strong support for the prevalence of "quasi-maximin" preferences: People sacrifice to increase the payoffs for all recipients, but especially for the lowest-payoff recipients. People are also motivated by reciprocity: While people are reluctant to sacrifice to reciprocate good or bad behavior beyond what they would sacrifice for neutral parties, they withdraw willingness to sacrifice to achieve a fair outcome when others are themselves unwilling to sacrifice. Some participants are averse to getting different payoffs than others, but based on our experiments and reinterpretation of previous experiments we argue that behavior that has been presented as "difference aversion" in recent papers is actually a combination of reciprocal and quasi-maximin motivations. We formulate a model in which each player is willing to sacrifice to allocate the quasi-maximin allocation only to those players also believed to be pursuing the quasi-maximin allocation, and may sacrifice to punish unfair players.Difference aversion, fairness, inequality aversion, maximin criterion, non-ultimatum games, reciprocal fairness, social preferences, Leex

(WP 2010-05) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, and the Sacrifice Ratio

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation-output trade-off and suggests that the ultimate effect of openness on the output-inflation relationship is influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we consider the impact of exchange-rate pass through and how pass through conditions the effect of openness on the sacrifice ratio. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how both the extent of pass through and openness can interact to influence the output-inflation relationship. Next we empirically explore the nature of these two variables and their interaction. Results indicate that greater pass through increases the sacrifice ratio, that there is significant interaction among pass through and openness, and—once the extent of pass through is taken into account alongside other factors that affect the sacrifice ratio, such as central bank independence—openness exerts an empirically ambiguous effect on the sacrifice ratio

Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, Inflation, and the Sacrifice Ratio

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation-output trade-off and realized inflation rates. In this paper, we utilize cross-country data to provide evidence of interacting effects between a greater extent of exchange-rate pass through and openness to international trade as factors that we find both contribute to lower inflation. The interplay between the inflation effects of pass through and openness suggest that both factors may influence the terms of the output-inflation trade-off. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how both pass through and openness can interact to influence the sacrifice ratio, and we empirically explore the nature of the interplay between the two variables as factors influencing the sacrifice ratio. Our results indicate that a greater extent of pass through depresses the sacrifice ratio and that once the extent of pass through is taken into account alongside other factors that affect the sacrifice ratio, the degree of openness to international trade exerts an empirically ambiguous effect on the sacrifice ratio.Pass Through, Openness, Sacrifice Ratio

The Perennial Purple Heart

Let’s talk about Veterans’ sacrifices. I must admit that I didn’t know much myself about veterans until one of my siblings entered the Navy. I’m very proud of his service, sacrifice, and dedication to protecting the United States. It’s probably not a common thought to all of us, but I think often of what it is like to be away during wartime serving our country. Military folks sacrifice a ton – whether it be lower pay, moving around a lot, being away from family for a long time, going into risky military operations, etc. These men and women sacrifice comparatively comfortable American livelihoods to go into situations where they know they may very well die serving our country. [excerpt