Theorizing about public expenditure decision-making: (as) if wishes were horses ...

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Downs ◽  
Patrick Larkey
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
As If

Analysing Public Expenditure: (I) Planning, Control and Price

1981 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Copeman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Future Issue ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Policy Problem ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Cash Basis

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the different cost bases in which public expenditure can be analysed as a policy problem related to the differing requirements of planning, authorising and controlling the various components of public expenditure. The analysis is applied to the United Kingdom, where in 1981 changes were announced in the method of making public expenditure decisions which had evolved over the previous two decades. The various components of public expenditure in the United Kingdom are described, and the decision-making process which led to the March 1981 Public Expenditure White Paper is outlined. The significance of the different price bases used in public expenditure (cash (at current or at expected prices), volume, cost, and constant) is then explored. The advantages and disadvantages for policy-makers of attempting to reduce the number of price bases used are analysed; it is shown that there is no cost-free route to reducing complexity. The significance of government's decision in 1981 to make greater use of the cash basis in decision-making is assessed. The analysis is applied specifically to the United Kingdom, but the issues raised are of policy relevance to the choice of price bases for public expenditure decision-making in any country in a time of inflation.(A second paper in a future issue of the Journal will examine the political purposes behind gross or net measurement, the earmaking of receipts, and the more precise relationships between figures used in the planning of public expenditure, in macro-economic analysis and forecasting and in Parliamentary and local control.)

Bayesian Analysis of Overprediction of Insanity

1974 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
R. E. Peterson ◽  
K. K. Seo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Bayesian Analysis ◽  
Loss Function ◽  
Violent Behavior ◽  
Decision Making Under Uncertainty ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Rational Person ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
States Of Nature ◽  
As If

Decision-making under uncertainty is visualized as a two-action game against nature. The psychiatrist is the player and has two actions from which to choose: predict violent behavior or predict sanity. The two states of nature are (i) the accused is in fact guilty and (ii) the accused is in fan innocent. The psychiatrist acts as if he evaluates a loss function which is such that overprediction of violent behavior is the natural consequence of a rational person who wishes to minimize his personal risk. Society's loss function, however, differs from the psychiatrist's loss function to such an extent that a rational society would want to underpredict violent behavior in order to minimize the risk of false confinements. It is suggested that the player of this game (the psychiatrist) has been ill-advisedly chosen.

Gender Bias and Venture Funding: Discussing Bias in the Entrepreneurship Classroom

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy L. Michaelis ◽  
Jeffrey M. Pollack ◽  
Paul Mulvey ◽  
Beth M. Ritter ◽  
Jon C. Carr
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Executive Summary ◽  
Entrepreneurial Opportunities ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Venture Funding ◽  
As If

We report on the findings from an in-class experiment that represents a learning innovation which can enable classroom-based conversations about bias in the domain of entrepreneurship. More specifically, the present learning innovation explores gender bias in venture funding with regard to entrepreneurship. In an introduction to entrepreneurship class, we randomly assigned students to one of the three experimental conditions—students evaluated an executive summary for a venture either written by a woman, or a man, or one in which the gender was neutral (i.e., the control group). Students acted as if they were considering an investment and reported whether, for example, the executive summary was well written as well as how much equity they would want in the venture as a potential investor. Overall, these results provide evidence consistent with the inference that the students sampled in this study did not use gender as a decision-making heuristic when evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities. We discuss the results of our experiment and describe (a) how to replicate this activity, (b) how to discuss this in the classroom, and (c) how to adapt this activity to explore other types of bias (e.g., race, ethnicity, weight-based, etc.).

7. Discretion and deference

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Endicott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
National Security ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Administrative Body ◽  
The Law

This chapter discusses how judges can defer in appropriate ways to administrative authorities on some issues, while still opposing abuses of power. The chapter explains why the courts defer massively to administrative authorities on some issues involving foreign affairs and national security, public expenditure, planning, and legal and political processes. The mere fact that the law has allocated the power to an administrative body gives rise to a presumption that a court should not interfere unless there is a ground for review other than that the court would have reached a decision; the extent to which a court ought to defer is determined by the three reasons for allocating power to an administrative body: the body’s expertise, its political responsibility, and/or its decision-making processes.

Tax Equalization in Mutual Funds

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L. Gill ◽  
Christopher Schwarz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mutual Funds ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Additional Fund ◽  
Fund Families ◽  
As If

ABSTRACT By making an annual tax election, open-ended mutual funds can treat redeeming shareholders as if they have been allocated a pro-rata share of taxable gains, when in fact they have not (known as “equalization”). Equalization provides significant benefits to shareholders and funds; however, it also leads to additional fund-level costs. In this study, we use equalization elections to examine how managers weigh the costs and benefits of tax minimization. Overall, our results suggest both are important in the decision-making process. Even though funds and investors both benefit, only 10 percent of funds use equalization. Funds in larger fund families and with higher expense ratios, both proxies for the additional infrastructure necessary to calculate equalization dividends, are more likely to use equalization. Equalization is also used when its benefits are highest, such as by funds with greater redemptions and larger unrealized gains. Data Availability: Contact the first author.

scholarly journals Mental Simulation of Visceral States Affects Preferences and Behavior

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 406-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janina Steinmetz ◽  
Brittany M. Tausen ◽  
Jane L. Risen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
State Research ◽  
Portion Sizes ◽  
Food Portion ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
General Preferences ◽  
As If

Preferences and behavior are heavily influenced by one’s current visceral experience, yet people often fail to anticipate such effects. Although research suggests that this gap is difficult to overcome—to act as if in another visceral state—research on mental simulation has demonstrated that simulations can substitute for experiences, albeit to a weaker extent. We examine whether mentally simulating visceral states can impact preferences and behavior. We show that simulating a specific visceral state (e.g., being cold or hungry) shifts people’s preferences for relevant activities (Studies 1a-2) and choices of food portion sizes (Study 3). Like actual visceral experiences, mental simulation only affects people’s current preferences but not their general preferences (Study 4). Finally, people project simulated states onto similar others, as is the case for actual visceral experiences (Study 5). Thus, mental simulation may help people anticipate their own and others’ future preferences, thereby improving their decision making.

Developing Effective Flight Crew Decision Makers

1994 ◽  
Vol 38 (14) ◽  
pp. 931-934
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Lyall
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Training Programs ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Flight Training ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Flight Crew ◽  
Effective Training ◽  
Operations Performance ◽  
As If

The need for including decision making training objectives in the development of flight crew training programs is evident given the dynamic and complex environment in which the pilots perform. The experience of one airline in developing training for their flight crews has demonstrated that these types of objectives can be effectively integrated into their line oriented flight training (LOFT) program. The primary goal of LOFT is to create a realistic environment in which the pilots perform as if they are in line operations. Performance in this environment sets the stage for an effective training debriefing. An essential part of creating this environment is allowing for realistic decisions to be made that are followed by the appropriate outcomes and consequences. Pilots have consistently rated these training events as effective and helpful. Besides these student critiques, the effectiveness of the training is also evaluated using check pilot observations of crew performance in line operations.

scholarly journals Econometrics for Decision Making: Building Foundations Sketched by Haavelmo and Wald

Econometrica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 89 (6) ◽  
pp. 2827-2853
Author(s):  
Charles F. Manski
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Theory ◽  
Model Space ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
Statistical Decision Theory ◽  
Point Estimate ◽  
Statistical Decision ◽  
Probabilistic Structure ◽  
States Of Nature ◽  
As If

Haavelmo (1944) proposed a probabilistic structure for econometric modeling, aiming to make econometrics useful for decision making. His fundamental contribution has become thoroughly embedded in econometric research, yet it could not answer all the deep issues that the author raised. Notably, Haavelmo struggled to formalize the implications for decision making of the fact that models can at most approximate actuality. In the same period, Wald (1939, 1945) initiated his own seminal development of statistical decision theory. Haavelmo favorably cited Wald, but econometrics did not embrace statistical decision theory. Instead, it focused on study of identification, estimation, and statistical inference. This paper proposes use of statistical decision theory to evaluate the performance of models in decision making. I consider the common practice of as‐if optimization: specification of a model, point estimation of its parameters, and use of the point estimate to make a decision that would be optimal if the estimate were accurate. A central theme is that one should evaluate as‐if optimization or any other model‐based decision rule by its performance across the state space, listing all states of nature that one believes feasible, not across the model space. I apply the theme to prediction and treatment choice. Statistical decision theory is conceptually simple, but application is often challenging. Advancing computation is the primary task to complete the foundations sketched by Haavelmo and Wald.

scholarly journals Knowing when Disagreements are Deep

2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Adams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Medical Decision Making ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Rational Persuasion ◽  
Deep Disagreement ◽  
Moral Demand ◽  
As If

Reasoned disagreement is a pervasive feature of public life, and the persistence of disagreement is sometimes troublesome, reflecting the need to make difficult decisions. Fogelin suggests that parties to a deep disagreement should abandon reason and switch to non-rational persuasion. But how are the parties to know when (if ever) to make such a switch? I argue that Fogelin's analysis doesn't clearly address this question, and that disputes arising in areas like medical decision making are such that the parties to them have reasons to act as if they can be rationally resolved even if they are deep. Fogelin's analysis is thus of limited value as regards the practical moral demand of addressing concrete moral dilemmas.

7. Discretion and deference

2021 ◽  
pp. 239-286
Author(s):  
Timothy Endicott
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
National Security ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Administrative Body ◽  
The Law

This chapter discusses how judges can defer in appropriate ways to administrative authorities on some issues, while still opposing abuses of power. The chapter explains why the courts defer massively to administrative authorities on some issues involving foreign affairs and national security, public expenditure, planning, and legal and political processes. The mere fact that the law has allocated the power to an administrative body gives rise to a presumption that a court should not interfere unless there is a ground for review other than that the court would have reached a decision. The extent to which a court ought to defer is determined by the three reasons for allocating power to an administrative body: the body’s expertise, its political responsibility, and/or its decision-making processes.

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