Getting Emotional: Wittgenstein, van Fraassen, and Making Sense of Revolution

This paper aims to demonstrate the fecundity of pairing specific insights from On Certainty with research in the philosophy and history of the natural sciences. To do so, it discusses one set of related themes in the work that focus on the possibility of and nature of revolutionary change. Specifically, I argue that several of Wittgenstein’s rather gnomic remarks presage van Fraassen’s insistence on the need for decisions and emotions throughout scientific revolutions. Moreover, I argue that reading both together enriches each’s individual account and helps further make sense of why and how conversion is not just a ‘mad leap in the dark’.

Can Gambling Increase Savings? Empirical Evidence on Prize-Linked Savings Accounts

This paper studies the adoption and impact of prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer lottery-like payouts to individual account holders in lieu of interest. Using microlevel data from a bank in South Africa, we show that PLS is attractive to a broad group of individuals, with financially constrained individuals and those with no other deposit accounts particularly likely to participate. Individuals who choose to use PLS increase their total savings on average by 1% of annual income. Exploiting the random assignment of prizes, we present causal evidence that PLS substitutes for lottery gambling but is a complement to standard savings. This paper was accepted by Tyler Shumway, finance.

Money flow network among firms’ accounts in a regional bank of Japan

In this study, we investigate the flow of money among bank accounts possessed by firms in a region by employing an exhaustive list of all the bank transfers in a regional bank in Japan, to clarify how the network of money flow is related to the economic activities of the firms. The network statistics and structures are examined and shown to be similar to those of a nationwide production network. Specifically, the bowtie analysis indicates what we refer to as a “walnut” structure with core and upstream/downstream components. To quantify the location of an individual account in the network, we used the Hodge decomposition method and found that the Hodge potential of the account has a significant correlation to its position in the bowtie structure as well as to its net flow of incoming and outgoing money and links, namely the net demand/supply of individual accounts. In addition, we used non-negative matrix factorization to identify important factors underlying the entire flow of money; it can be interpreted that these factors are associated with regional economic activities. One factor has a feature whereby the remittance source is localized to the largest city in the region, while the destination is scattered. The other factors correspond to the economic activities specific to different local places. This study serves as a basis for further investigation on the relationship between money flow and economic activities of firms.

An uncertain, erratic story: the pandemic in the UK

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study the pandemic from the perspective of the UK health-care system and risk management. Design/methodology/approach This paper follows a storytelling perspective. The author reflects on his experiences through the lens of research on health care and risk management. Findings The impact of the pandemic has been so massive that it has challenged the capacity of the UKs National Health Service. The political influences at work have not always promoted best practice in risk management and indicate blame-avoidance strategies by politicians. Research limitations/implications A single country experience of COVID-19. Practical implications There are major issues of asset management, of delays in decision-making, of supply chain problems and the need to reform processes of handling of crisis management. Originality/value This is an individual account of experiences of the pandemic.

Analyzing Dorian Twitter data to understand how hurricane risk communication changes as threats unfold

Social media has been widely used for hurricane risk communication but also faces the challenge of providing effective risk messages for the public. This research explores the diffusion of forecast messages on social media for Hurricane Dorian (2019) to understandhow hurricane risk information is created, disseminated, and discussed in many-to-many communication modes. We collected streams of posts from professional Twitter accounts, conducted a descriptive statistical analysis of manually-coded tweets to identify hurricane riskmessage types, performed a network analysis to audit engagement among different types of accounts, and calculated sentiment scores to examine message opinions. The results showed that professional accounts are more likely to post original content than share, among which most of the organizational accounts (including forecasters, emergency management, and news outlets) post in regular intervals with a fixed message format and a neutral opinion while professional individual accounts (e.g. meteorologist, broadcasters) post with no observable temporal regulation, variable forms, and sentiments. However, the forecaster accounts are less engaged than the mediator accounts (i.e. news outlets and professional individual account holders). The study also revealed that under the hurricane risk context, those willing to shareinformation rely more on post timing and expertise of post creators, rather than message type and sentiment.

Preloved Shopping

Online shopping has become part of public shopping activities, through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, etc., with various shopping convenience. Since the rise of online businesses, Instagram is one of the most popular shopping media, both for new and preloved goods. While a number of existing literatures concentrate on online shopping with various new items, little if any deals with preloved shopping with specific items, focusing on its management. This article fills this gap. This study was conducted on social media Instagram on preloved goods seller accounts through which preloved goods are sold. The informants in this study were female sellers and buyers of preloved goods, as they are the dominant preloved sellers and buyers, particularly cosmetics and fashion. There were 11 women participated in this study, they are varied based on age (between 19 and 25 years), occupation (six female students, a celebgram, entrepreneur, influencer, and barista respectively), and status (six buyers and five owners who at the same time act as administration staff (admin). The study indicates that cosmetics and fashions are two types of preloved item which are popularly sold and bought in Instagram. Although used goods are very diverse, the term preloved is used limitedly, and used products such as cosmetics and fashion are included as preloved items. Among other preloved items in Instagram, cosmetics (such as make up and skin care) and fashion (such as bags, shoes, assesories, clothes) are the most popular items. Reduced price (“harga miring”), brand (merek), and trying out (coba-coba) are three main reasons why women buy preloved cosmetics; while brand (merek), style (model), reduced price (“harga miring”), and quality are four main reasons why preloved fashion are bought. In addition, brands and "reduced prices" are two reasons that intersect between preloved cosmetics and fashion, and quality is always related to price, as it is with brands, which show that some factors are interrelated to one another. However, each type of goods has its own unique reasons why it is bought. For preloved cosmetics sellers, selling preloved goods is to make cosmetics available for use before the expired date. As for preloved fashion sellers, the fashion goods are sold because they are rarely used or are not use at all. Both cosmetics and fashions sellers have common reason to sell preloved items, that is to make money from used goods instead of being left useless. There are two types of preloved account in Instagram. They are special account and private account. Special account is divided into two, namely celebgram and non-celebgram accounts. Celebgram account consists of self-managed accounts, managed in groups, and managed by administrative staff (admin). Non-celebgram account consists of individual account and group account. In addition, private account is an inseparable account between a personal account and preloved sales account. Most accounts are managed by its owners who are at the same time act as administration staff, except one type of celebgram account. Group account manages their account by division of labour system. In promoting existing items, they use a variety of strategies, ranging from using other’s accounts which have many followers, packaged promotion, discounting, to using celebgram services.