scholarly journals Groups discipline resource use under scarcity

Author(s):  
Florian Diekert ◽  
Kjell Arne Brekke

AbstractScarcity sharpens the conflict between short term gains and long term sustainability. Psychological research documents that decision makers focus on immediate needs under scarcity and use available resources more effectively. However, decision makers also borrow too much from future resources and overall performance decreases as a consequence. Using an online experiment, we study how scarcity affects borrowing decisions in groups. We first document that scarcity affects groups in a similar way as individuals. Then, we go on to show that the negative effect of scarcity is weaker for groups than for individuals. Even in a minimal design that excludes direct interaction or communication, the fact that participants know that their own behavior affects and can be partly observed by another participant disciplines their use of scarce resources. Our results thus highlight the benefit of groups as units of human organization.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Michael C Cipriano ◽  
Thomas S Gruca ◽  
Jennie Jiao

Business writers and academics have suggested keeping an investing diary to avoid hindsight bias. In the diary, investors justify their predictions of future events, e.g., “This stock will go up because…” Eliminating hindsight bias should improve future returns. However, psychological research on the “explanation effect” suggests that justifying one’s predictions in writing induces overconfidence and, by consequence, reduces current returns. We test these propositions in a set of prediction markets populated by two types of traders: forecasters who completed a required investing diary task and non-forecasters who did not. The portfolios of forecasters were significantly over-invested in securities associated with the forecaster’s prediction. This is consistent with prior psychological research and a clear sign of investor over-confidence. We further find that forecasters with accurate predictions have higher returns than those with inaccurate predictions. However, the returns for forecasters with inaccurate predictions were generally no worse than the returns of the non-forecasters. Our results suggest that while keeping an investing diary may lead to biased portfolios, it does not have an overall negative effect on current returns. Therefore, contrary to expectations, there is not a trade-off between the long-term and short-term effects of an investing diary.


Genome ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 272-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donal A. Hickey ◽  
Bernhard F. Benkel ◽  
Charalambos Magoulas

Multicellular eukaryotes have evolved complex homeostatic mechanisms that buffer the majority of their cells from direct interaction with the external environment. Thus, in these organisms long-term adaptations are generally achieved by modulating the developmental profile and tissue specificity of gene expression. Nevertheless, a subset of eukaryotic genes are still involved in direct responses to environmental fluctuations. It is the adaptative responses in the expression of these genes that buffers many other genes from direct environmental effects. Both microevolutionary and macroevolutionary patterns of change in the structure and regulation of such genes are illustrated by the sequences encoding α-amylases. The molecular biology and evolution of α-amylases in Drosophila and other higher eukaryotes are presented. The amylase system illustrates the effects of both long-term and short-term natural selection, acting on both the structural and regulatory components of a gene–enzyme system. This system offers an opportunity for linking evolutionary genetics to molecular biology, and it allows us to explore the relationship between short-term microevolutionary changes and long-term adaptations.Key words: gene regulation, molecular evolution, eukaryotes, Drosophila, amylase.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omer Unsal

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how firms’ relationships with employees define their debt maturity. The authors empirically test the role of employee litigations in influencing firms’ choice of short-term versus long-term debt. The authors study employee relations by analyzing the importance of the workplace environment on capital structure. Design/methodology/approach The author’s test hypotheses using a sample of US publicly traded firms between 2000 and 2017, including 3,056 unique firms with 4,256 unique chief executive officer, adopting the fixed effect panel model. Findings The authors document that employee litigations have a significant negative effect on the use of short-term debt and a significant positive affect on long-term debt. Employee litigations, along with legal fees, outcomes and charging parties, matter the most in explaining debt maturity. In addition, frequently sued firms abandon the short-term debt market and use less shareholders’ equity to finance their operations while relying more on the longer debt market. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the role of employee mistreatment in debt maturity choice. The study extends the lawsuit and finance literature by examining unique, hand-collected data sets of employee lawsuits, allegations, violations, settlements, charging parties, case outcomes and case durations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Safriwan Safriwan ◽  
Idris Idris

Abstract : The study describes the effects on globalization population density andeconomic growth on environmental degradation in Indonesia. This research uses a timeseries data from year 1971 - 2017, with method Error Correction Model (ECM). Datasources from Global Carbon Project, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, and WorldBank. Research result explain that (1) Globalization in long term has a insignificantpositive effect on environmental degradation in Indonesia, but short term globalizationhas a insignificant negative effect on environmental degradation in Indonesia (2)Population density in long term has a significant positive , and short term has ainsignificant positive effect on environmental degradation in Indonesia (3) Economicgrowth in long and short term has a significant positive effect on environmentaldegradation in Indonesia.Keywords : Environmental Degradation, Globalization Population Density AndEconomic Growth.


Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Ali Pormohammad ◽  
Mohammad Zarei ◽  
Saied Ghorbani ◽  
Mehdi Mohammadi ◽  
Saeideh Aghayari Sheikh Neshin ◽  
...  

The high transmissibility, mortality, and morbidity rate of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) variant have raised concerns regarding vaccine effectiveness (VE). To address this issue, all publications relevant to the effectiveness of vaccines against the Delta variant were searched in the Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE, and Medline (via PubMed) databases up to 15 October 2021. A total of 15 studies (36 datasets) were included in the meta-analysis. After the first dose, the VE against the Delta variant for each vaccine was 0.567 (95% CI 0.520–0.613) for Pfizer-BioNTech, 0.72 (95% CI 0.589–0.822) for Moderna, 0.44 (95% CI 0.301–0.588) for AstraZeneca, and 0.138 (95% CI 0.076–0.237) for CoronaVac. Meta-analysis of 2,375,957 vaccinated cases showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had the highest VE against the infection after the second dose, at 0.837 (95% CI 0.672–0.928), and third dose, at 0.972 (95% CI 0.96–0.978), as well as the highest VE for the prevention of severe infection or death, at 0.985 (95% CI 0.95–0.99), amongst all COVID-19 vaccines. The short-term effectiveness of vaccines, especially mRNA-based vaccines, for the prevention of the Delta variant infection, hospitalization, severe infection, and death is supported by this study. Limitations include a lack of long-term efficacy data, and under-reporting of COVID-19 infection cases in observational studies, which has the potential to falsely skew VE rates. Overall, this study supports the decisions by public health decision makers to promote the population vaccination rate to control the Delta variant infection and the emergence of further variants.


Author(s):  
Jorge Mauricio Falcón Gómez ◽  
Fernando Martín Mayoral

Trade diversification patterns help explain the level of utilization of trade opportunities by countries, mainly the least developed. Empirical analyses show an inverse U relationship between trade diversification and level of development. Trade diversification measures used do not take into account differences in complexity of exports, and complexity indices only consider products with comparative advantages. This study seeks to cover both gaps by analyzing the differences in the determinants of trade diversification, considering the complexity of products exported by 19 Western Hemisphere countries from 1962 to 2017. The results show that after controlling for economic complexity, the inverted U relationship disappears. Development of financial markets positively affects the complexity of trade diversification in the long term, while the terms of trade that have a negative effect on trade diversification does not affect the complexity-corrected indices. In the short term, transaction costs and trade openness appear to have a significant effect.


2019 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 01003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Beek ◽  
Bart Letitre ◽  
H. Hadiyanto ◽  
S. Sudarno

The Water as Leverage project aims to lay a blueprint for urban coastal areas around the world that are facing a variety of water-related issues. The blueprint is based upon three real case studies in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia. The case of Indonesia focuses on Semarang, a city that faces issues like flooding, increased water demand, and a lack of wastewater treatment. In this report I summarise the different techniques available to tackling these issues. Along with this I provide a cost-benefit analysis to support decision makers. For a short term it is recommended to produce industrial water from (polluted) surface water as a means to offer an alternative to groundwater abstraction. On a long term it is recommended to install additional wastewater and drinking water treatment services to facilitate better hygiene and a higher quality of life.


Author(s):  
Rodrick Wallace

Statistical models based on the asymptotic limit theorems of control and information theories allow formal examination of the essential differences between short-time “tactical” confrontations and a long-term “strategic” conflict dominated by evolutionary process. The world of extended coevolutionary conflict is not the world of sequential “muddling through.” The existential strategic challenge is to take cognitive control of a long-term dynamic in which one may, in fact, be “losing” most short-term confrontations. Winning individual battles can be a relatively direct, if not simple or easy, matter of sufficient local resources, training, and resolve. Winning extended conflicts is not direct, and requires management of subtle coevolutionary phenomena subject to a dismaying punctuated equilibrium more familiar from evolutionary theory than military doctrine. Directed evolution has given us the agricultural base needed for large-scale human organization. Directed coevolution of the inevitable conflicts between the various segments of that organization may be needed for its long-term persistence.


2014 ◽  
Vol 718 ◽  
pp. 105-109
Author(s):  
Eva Oravcová ◽  
Miroslav Zelko

Comprehensive environmental observation, eco-innovation and smartization are essential to ensure the delivery of the long-term data and information required to address the shift towards smart, green and integrated raw materials efficiency. For this reason we need the mine-wide digitalization and informatization base model, an advanced mine-wide decision support system and a smart supervision system to supervise and control the production, back to predefined short-term production targets with most likelihood and optimal approaches. There are three main steps to be taken: analysis, evaluation and determination of the shift requirements, development of the models as well as modeling of the scenarios and connection to the smart platform for the support of the decision makers. The paper aims to consider what would be required for a raw materials area to operate as a modern smart technology-supported business. It attempts to provide a vision of some future smart architectures scenarios.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin P. Lange ◽  
Christine Hennighausen ◽  
Michael Brill ◽  
Frank Schwab

Abstract Recent evolutionary experimental psychological research found that high verbal proficiency (VP) increased the perceived attractiveness of individuals (more so for males than females), especially in the context of a long-term relationship. Our study had the objective of replicating and extending this research. Similar to previous studies, audio files in which speakers performed scripted self-presentations that had equal content but varied on VP were used as stimuli for opposite-sex participants. VP was found to increase attractiveness ratings. The effects were mostly small for numerous variables relating to short-term mating, whereas they were moderate to large for long-term mating. Our participants attributed more future income, but not more total number of mates to speakers with higher VP. Female menstrual cycle effects on attractiveness ratings were not found. Contrary to former research, being more verbally proficient was not found to be more beneficial for one sex over the other.


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