Hypnotizability Norms may not be Representative of the General Population: Potential Sample and Self-Selection Bias Considerations

Author(s):  
Burkhard Peter ◽  
R. Lynae Roberts
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Richard W. Lyles

It is generally understood that there is some bias involved in selection of participants for driver performance studies, but little is known about the extent of this problem. To execute a National Cooperative Highway Research Program project on the effectiveness of traffic control devices, a sample of younger and older drivers was required. The purpose was to gain insight into the bias introduced through participant selection and self-selection. Of interest is whether the drivers who participate in projects for which driving or other testing is required tend to be different than the general population of licensed drivers. Results indicate that, compared with nonparticipants, participants are more active, more likely to travel and drive, less likely to avoid driving in certain circumstances, and less likely to have vision problems. The implication is that project participants represent more highly mobile and confident drivers than would be found in a random sample of the general population. However, project participants also had higher percentages of total accidents and violation points and were involved in more severe accidents than nonparticipants. These problems may be somewhat mitigated, though, by higher driving exposure for participant drivers. Such self-selection bias needs to be considered whenever research like this is undertaken.


2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Richardson ◽  
Grantley Taylor ◽  
Roman Lanis

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of women on the board of directors on corporate tax avoidance in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The authors use multivariate regression analysis to test the association between the presence of female directors on the board and tax aggressiveness. They also test for self-selection bias in the regression model by using the two-stage Heckman procedure. Findings This paper finds that relative to there being one female board member, high (i.e. greater than one member) female presence on the board of directors reduces the likelihood of tax aggressiveness. The results are robust after controlling for self-selection bias and using several alternative measures of tax aggressiveness. Research limitations/implications This study extends the extant literature on corporate governance and tax aggressiveness. This study is subject to several caveats. First, the sample is restricted to publicly listed Australian firms. Second, this study only examines the issue of women on the board of directors and tax aggressiveness in the context of Australia. Practical implications This research is timely, as there has been increased pressure by government bodies in Australia and globally to develop policies to increase female representation on the board of directors. Originality/value This study is the first to provide empirical evidence concerning the association between the presence of women on the board of directors and tax aggressiveness.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ningyuan Chen ◽  
Anran Li ◽  
Kalyan Talluri

Reviews for products and services written by previous consumers have become an influential input to the purchase decision of customers. Many service businesses monitor the reviews closely for feedback as well as detecting service flaws, and they have become part of the performance review for service managers with rewards tied to improvement in the aggregate rating. Many empirical papers have documented a bias in the aggregate ratings, arising because of customers’ inherent self-selection in their choices and bounded rationality in evaluating previous reviews. Although there is a vast empirical literature analyzing reviews, theoretical models that try to isolate and explain the bias in ratings are relatively few. Assuming consumers simply substitute the average rating that they see as a proxy for quality, we give a precise characterization of the self-selection bias on ratings of an assortment of products when consumers confound ex ante innate preferences for a product or service with ex post experience and service quality and do not separate the two. We develop a parsimonious choice model for consumer purchase decisions and show that the mechanism leads to an upward bias, which is more pronounced for niche products. Based on our theoretical characterization, we study the effect on pricing and assortment decisions of the firm when potential customers purchase based on the biased ratings. Our results give insights into how quality, prices, and customer feedback are intricately tied together for service firms. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, operations management.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 887-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Dalla Valle

Abstract Official statistics are a fundamental source of publicly available information that periodically provides a great amount of data on all major areas of citizens’ lives, such as economics, social development, education, and the environment. However, these extraordinary sources of information are often neglected, especially by business and industrial statisticians. In particular, data collected from small businesses, like small and medium-sized enterprizes (SMEs), are rarely integrated with official statistics data. In official statistics data integration, the quality of data is essential to guarantee reliable results. Considering the analysis of surveys on SMEs, one of the most common issues related to data quality is the high proportion of nonresponses that leads to self-selection bias. This work illustrates a flexible methodology to deal with self-selection bias, based on the generalization of Heckman’s two-step method with the introduction of copulas. This approach allows us to assume different distributions for the marginals and to express various dependence structures. The methodology is illustrated through a real data application, where the parameters are estimated according to the Bayesian approach and official statistics data are incorporated into the model via informative priors.


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