Dissecting the links between reward and loss, decision-making, and self-reported affect using a computational approach

Links between affective states and risk-taking are often characterised using summary statistics from serial decision-making tasks. However, our understanding of these links, and the utility of decision-making as a marker of affect, needs to accommodate the fact that ongoing (e.g., within-task) experience of rewarding and punishing decision outcomes may alter future decisions and affective states. To date, the interplay between affect, ongoing reward and punisher experience, and decision-making has received little detailed investigation. Here, we examined the relationships between reward and loss experience, affect, and decision-making in humans using a novel judgement bias task analysed with a novel computational model. We demonstrated the influence of within-task favourability on decision-making, with more risk-averse/‘pessimistic’ decisions following more positive previous outcomes and a greater current average earning rate. Additionally, individuals reporting more negative affect tended to exhibit greater risk-seeking decision-making, and, based on our model, estimated time more poorly. We also found that individuals reported more positive affective valence during periods of the task when prediction errors and offered decision outcomes were more positive. Our results thus provide new evidence that (short-term) within-task rewarding and punishing experiences determine both future decision-making and subjectively experienced affective states.

Can Innovation Platforms (IPs) Improve Rural Women Participation in Maize Value Chain? Evidence from the Eastern DR Congo

This study explored the potential of the Innovation Platform approach, in improving the participation of rural female farmers in Maize value chain. It intends to identify the peculiarities, in terms of challenges and opportunities related to its application to the rural women realities. The study collected data from 120 small scale maize producers in South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 2015 to 2017, using individual interview and focus group discussion (FGD) for data confirmation. Data was analyzed using the Average Effect of Treatment of treated (ATT) and the propensity matching score to assess the effect of IP approach on rural women, who were randomly selected to participate in an innovation platform composed solely of women (100%) against those participating in a mixed innovation platform, made of 70% of men. The results show that the Innovation platform approach allowed women to address their basic challenges and improve their participation in the maize value chain. Average individual income from participation to the Innovation Platform increased from $ 100 to $ 300 per cropping season and the average earning of a women in a platform made of women solely was $552.6 higher than that of women participating in mixed platform $432.4. We hypothesized that the main benefits from the female IP would be increased maize yields. However, the analysis shows that although yield increased, the main effect was due to improved market access provided by the IP." The implementation of the innovation platform process encountered several challenges, in particular: building a consensus when the interests of the groups in place have proven to be divergent, the barrier of social consideration (social stereotype), inability of smallholder’s farmers to learn quickly and fully play expected role, the traditional culture of learning, visioning the process. Despite these challenges, IPs offered small-scale maize producers many technical, organizational and material opportunities, including income generation, access to inputs and to lucrative markets, acquisition of diversified knowledge and skills, ability to work in a commercial environment, benefiting from the services of experts, accessing new sources of financing, they could not benefit otherwise. These findings imply that to be effective for rural women, an innovation platform should include individuals with no wide social disparity and diversify the sources of income, including livestock and others off farm activities

Dissecting the links between reward and loss, decision-making, and self-reported affect using a computational approach

Links between affective states and risk-taking are often characterised using summary statistics from serial decision-making tasks. However, our understanding of these links, and the utility of decision-making as a marker of affect, needs to accommodate the fact that ongoing (e.g. within-task) experience of rewarding and punishing decision outcomes may alter future decisions and affective states. To date, the interplay between affect, ongoing reward and punisher experience, and decision-making has received little detailed investigation. Here, we examined the relationships between reward and loss experience, affect, and decision-making in humans using a novel judgement bias task analysed with a novel computational model. We demonstrated the influence of within-task favourability on decision-making, with more risk-averse/`pessimistic' decisions following more positive previous outcomes and a greater current average earning rate. Additionally, individuals reporting more negative affect tended to exhibit greater risk-seeking decision-making, and, based on our model, estimated time more poorly. We also found that individuals reported more positive affective valence during periods of the task when prediction errors and offered decision outcomes were more positive. Our results thus provide new evidence that (short-term) within-task rewarding and punishing experiences determine both future decision-making and subjectively experienced affective states.

Return to Skills in India: The Role of Digital Access and Usage

This article analyses the quality of labour force in India using the data from India’s Citizen Environment and Consumer Economy (ICE) 360° survey (2016), which provides a view on how Indians earn, spend, save, invest, live, think, access amenities and public goods and consume. The approach adopted here provides an alternative perspective on the quality of labour force, which depends on skill levels, education and technology. The analysis reveals that Indian labour markets depicts a clear dichotomy between higher skill levels being dominated largely by the high-skilled workers and the manual jobs with lower skill levels for the low-skilled workers. Technology and digital usage has further accentuated this earnings differential. Also, higher skill levels in India tend to have both higher average earning and education levels compared to their lower skill counterparts, leading to widening the earning inequality.Further, this analysis provides important insights into the low skill levels of the vast Indian labour force, which would require re-qualification and re-specialisation of the labour force in order to compete in fast-changing globalised India. Thus, it becomes critical for Indian policymakers to relook the skill formation and education system to be able to swiftly and effectively respond to constantly evolving skill demand in the local, national and global market.

The Effect of Early Childhood Education and Care Services in Latvia

The growing number of studies stresses the importance of social investment at an early age by showing that social investment at this period has the highest returns in human capital. The main instrument of social investment at an early age is high quality early childhood education and care services. The aim of the research was to identify whether the first signs of social investment return could be observed in Latvia, since statistic data showed that there was an expansion of early childhood education and care services over the last decades, especially for children until obligatory pre-school age. Research results showed that positive connection could be observed between pre-school attendance rate and fertility rate, female and overall employment rate, average earning, etc. However, no connection could be observed when it came to education outcomes in the short term. The author recommends conducting more research regarding service quality and investment return in the future.

The relationship between earnings and labour productivity in textile industry

Earnings and labor productivity are important economic indicators, the relationship between them being analyzed by economists, employers and policy makers. The relationship between earnings and labor productivity is important for each region or economic sector, because it influences the living standard and the distribution of income between labor and capital. This paper analyzes the link between gross average earning and labor productivity in the textile industry during 2005‒2016 in Romania. The results of the analysis show that there is a positive, but moderate correlation between gross average earning and labor productivity. For this purpose were used statistical-econometric methods to verify the normality of data series distribution and the existence of a correlation between the indicators analyzed.

Pay inequality and the deteriorating labour standards in Croatia

This study furnishes proof in support of the hypothesis that Croatian employees are experiencing persistent worsening of the labour standard alongside the rising divergence in their earnings distribution. The research disclosed five mutually reinforcing tendencies investigated through a widely used Theil index and functional income distribution. The empirical analysis demonstrated the deterioration of the labour standard apparent through the continuous decline in the labour share of income concurrent with productivity growth. The net pay inequality reported a radical increase and stabilization on a higher plane with a nominal improvement brought about as a result of the layoffs predominantly affecting the lower tail of the distribution. Consequently, the lesser earning dispersion came at the expense of the overall rise in inequality. The gross inequality indicated an increasing pattern highly and positively correlated with the movement of the highest earners experiencing a triple-digit population surge. The rising between-county pay inequality throughout the period suggested a strong bias toward excessive centralization, evident with the capital city being the exclusive county consistently reporting above-average earning levels. Lastly, the between-sector pay inequality exhibited an overall decline. This isolated case, however, remains a dominant driver of inequality, given that the lowesthighest earning sector range is approximately double that of the between-county range. These findings are detrimental to the Croatian worker’s wellbeing and they pose a challenge to the national policymakers who must counter adverse tendencies in order to circumvent the current exodus of skilled workers, and restore long-term macroeconomic stability.

PENGAWASAN, KESADARAN RETRIBUSI SERTA SARANA DAN PRASARANA SEBAGAI PENYEBAB TIDAK TERCAPAINYA TARGET PENERIMAAN RETRIBUSI PELAYANAN SAMPAH DI KABUPATEN LOMBOK BARAT

The average earning of garbage disposal service retribution by West Lombok Regency's Office of City Planning, Gardening and Sanitation during the period of 2010-2014 was only 40% of the target in amount. This lower level of earning had prevented the Office from providing optimum services and caused it to be dependent on the Regency Government's subsidies. Ten employees of the Office and one retribution payer were selected as interviewees/informants through a purposive sampling technique, and the data taken from the interviews and from other documents were analyzed in a series of data reduction, display, and verification. The conclusion of this study provides an illustration on how the failure to achieve the targeted amount of revenue was caused by the lack of control in the part of the supervising levy collectors, the low awareness in the part of the community that prevented them from participating in the garbage disposal management and paying the retribution, and the inadequate availability of supporting infrastructure and facilities vis-a-vis the huge amount of garbage dumped every day by the city's population.