happiness tv series

i came across this on the BBC website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/4783836.stm

A six part series on the recent literature on happiness. i havent watched it yet but looks worthwhile

Decisions, Decisions

The current edition of Science has a special section devoted to examining the processes and structures that underlie decision-making--from trivial choices to major life-changing decisions. Insights from neuroscience are included.

Some talks at the Centre this week:

all in the Geary Institute Seminar Room:

Tuesday 30th October: Hugh Kelley (Copenhagen) “The Relative Influences of Land-owner and Landscape Heterogeneity in an Agent-Based Model of Land Use” - with the good sandwiches

Wednesday 31st October: Kevin Denny: Journal Club Review of "The somatic marker hypothesis: a neural theory of economic decision" by Bechara and Damasio - kevin is going to bring a surprise for everyone

Friday 2nd November, James Heckman (Chicago) “A Reanalysis of the Perry Preschool Project” - time tba

Friday 2nd November (2pm) Dr Sarah Crafter, Northampton University. ‘Researching young carers and language brokers: using the vignette methodology’ - coffee and bickies

the use of awards of incentives

The winner of the Liam Delaney prize for best posting on the Geary blog goes to Liam Delaney for this post.

Abstract:

Standard economic theory considers monetary incentives only. Awards have so far
escaped the attention of economists despite their widespread use. This paper presents an
experiment conducted online at IBM to assess the impact of these kinds of extrinsic
incentives. Introducing a hypothetical award has statistically significant effects on stated
contributions to a public good. Our design allows the estimation of the impact of
different award characteristics related to, for example, how public or how valuable the
award is. We illustrate these findings by providing predictions about the behavior
induced by a new award at IBM.


http://www.iew.unizh.ch/wp/index.en.php?action=query&id=334

crowding out researchers motivation - bruno frey

Abstract
Research evaluation is praised as the symbol of modern quality management. We claim firstly, that performance evaluations in research have higher costs than normally assumed, because the evaluated persons and institutions systematically change their behavior and develop counter strategies. Moreover, intrinsic work motivation is crowded out and undesired lock-in effects take place. Secondly, the benefits of performance evaluations are questionable. Evaluations provide too little information relevant for decision-making. In addition, they lose importance due to new forms of scientific cooperation on the internet. Thirdly, there exist superior alternatives. They consist in careful selection and supportive process coaching – and then leave individuals and research institutions to direct themselves.

http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp302.pdf

Economic Romance

About seven years ago, I stood in Eason's on O'Connell Street (in Dublin, as opposed to the Limerick one) marvelling at the sheer scope of Mills and Boon romances. Up to that point, they had not exactly been a presence in my life - and I was particularly struck by the enormous selection of "Medical Romance" titles. Naively I had no idea that doctors were a particularly attractive group. Honest.

Anyway, I toyed with the idea of writing an article for the medical press on said books. But I didn't. And, ultimately, UCD's own Dr Brendan Kelly did: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7061887.stm - earning him the glory of appearing not only in the Lancet but on the BBC website.

It's an interesting read - especially that "there were no psychiatrists in the novels he [Brendan Kelly] looked at and it seems surgeons stand a better chance of finding love in the workplace"

I would perhaps have methodological issues with the study. At least Dr Kelly openly acknowledges his possible biases.

As the title of this post suggest, it does make you think what other professions could lend themselves to romantic novel writing...

lecturing video

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/html/icb.topic58703/winston1.html

i found this set of lectures very useful if a little dated. the Bok centre in Harvard in general has a lot of videos about different aspects of teaching.

rct's and development

one of the leading stories in Nature focuses on the RCT Development work in MIT. Worth reading,

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071022/full/449957a.html

World database of Happiness

If, like me, you are interested in making peole happy then the World Database of Happiness will make you very happy indeed. It is here http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/

I came across it on the website for Sheffield's university's Centre for Well-being in Public Policy, which itself warrants a look. http://www.shef.ac.uk/cwipp/publications.html

New UK Report on Obesity

The Foresight 'Tackling Obesitites: Future Choices Project' launched its findings yesterday in a report compiled by 250 experts in the field. It's worth downloading just for the most comprehensive schematic diagram you will probably ever see, in relation to this issue anyway. The general idea seems to be to accept collective responsibility and infuse change across the board in terms of the media, education, the nature of work, the built environment and recreation and transport, influence energy balance related behaviours at a young age, bring in new healthcare and treatment options, work on promoting ways of mass producing healthier food and so on. Everything's interlinked basically. If you don't believe me see pg. 129.

why are some academic fields tipping toward female?

we have talked about gender seggregation before and there seems to be evidence that in many walks of life men try to avoid overly feminised environments. the authors below argue that this could potentially further exacerbate gender divisions in disciplines. its interesting that female only scholarships have been announced to encourage women in to engineering in Ireland.

the key question for me is whether any of this matters for the quality of the science being produced. Will all male or all female environments lead to distorted views of the world, particularly in a social science context?

http://www.ccpr.ucla.edu/docs/England%20article.pdf

War on terror

The Pentagon is deploying crack teams of social anthropologists to Iraq & Afghanistan. It can only be a matter of time before they send in the economists. That'll sort them out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7042090.stm

Americans win economics Nobel

American economists Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson won the 2007 Nobel for economics today.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the three established "mechanism design theory", which looks at how well different institutions fare in allocating resources and whether government intervention is needed.

Mr Hurwicz, Russian-born but an American citizen, is 90 and is the oldest recipient of a Nobel prize. He initiated the theory, and it was further developed by Mr Maskin of Princeton and Mr Myerson of the University of Chicago, the academy's citation said.

"Today, mechanism design theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science," it said.

"Adam Smith's classical metaphor of the invisible hand refers to how the market, under ideal conditions, ensures an efficient allocation of scarce resources," the academy said.

"But in practice conditions are usually not ideal. For example, competition is not completely free, consumers are not perfectly informed, and privately desirable production and consumption may generate social costs and benefits."

Link

What neuroeconomics tells us about money and the brain

This comprehensive newspaper article includes an overview of how neuroeconomics has come about and interviews the thought leaders in the field. It's from last year but touches on many of the issues discussed in the stimulating seminar on the topic in Geary yesterday. In the later half of the article limbic activation reactions due to evolved concerns over dominance and reciprocation are discussed, as are dual-systems approach and their importance for the case for neuroeconomics. The benefits of considering brain activity patterns in those systems for real world decision-making and policy formation are also discussed, as are the ways in which the brain can be tricked into trust through the use of oxytocin. This is rather similar to Ken's argument for the way in which THC the active ingredient in cannabis may induce trust in ultimatum game, though perhaps with less ethical complications. For anyone interested in oxytocin products, for research purposes of course, I recommend 'Liquidtrust.co.uk'.

Concerns over the benefits of neuroeconomics and the possible experimental confounds are also touched on. At one point it is remarked that physicists began studying the stars then transformed the discipline through the study of sub-atomic particles and that economics is doing the same through the move towards the brain. Neuroeconomists self-aggrandising, never!

Mind Games

is greed good?

a popular article that summarises some of the themes from the behavioural workshop.

The workshop was useful for me to think more about neuroeconomics and behavioural economics more generally. we will be having a mini-conference on financial decision making that will focus on dual process models. volunteers for the sessions coming in to christmas would be appreciated.

here

O'Toole hails Ireland's position as most favoured EU location for life science foreign investment

IRELAND attracts more foreign direct investment (FDI) in life sciences than any other European country, according to new research published yesterday.

The research, from Belfast-based consultants OCO, shows life sciences brought almost €1.05bn of investment to Ireland in the year ended last June.

That figure puts Ireland streets ahead of the second largest recipient of life science FDI, Switzerland, which drew almost €487m. Meanwhile, the UK came in sixth place, with just under €290m of FDI in life science projects.

"By tracking the pipeline of investment projects coming to Ireland, it [OCO's research] provides us with an excellent indicator of our overall competitiveness position," said Dr Ronnie O'Toole, chief economist of National Irish Bank.

See ful story here.

Predicting Health Behaviors with an Experimental Measure of Risk Preference

Lisa R. Anderson (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)
Jennifer M. Mellor (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwm:wpaper:59&r=cbe

We conduct a large-scale economics experiment paired with a survey to examine the association between individual risk preferences and health-related behaviors among adults aged 18 to 87 years. Risk preferences are measured by the Holt and Laury (2002) lottery choice experiment. Controlling for race, sex, and age, we find that risk preference is significantly associated with cigarette smoking, being overweight or obese, seat belt non-use, and driving over the speed limit. In additional specifications, we find that risk preference is significantly associated with heavy episodic drinking, and is a significant predictor of the number of risky behaviors.

The New College Dropout

Story in Psychology Today: Colleges are shipping depressed students home. Campuses are opting for medical leave rather than treatment.

"In the last 18 months, six NYU students have jumped to their deaths, although the school acknowledges only four as suicides. When Elizabeth Shin, a student at M.I.T., committed suicide in 2000, her family sued the university for $27 million, alleging the school failed to provide adequate care. Her family lost the case...

At Cornell University in New York, administrators say that forced medical leave is rare. However, that may be because students are given a "choice" by the school: six months of voluntary leave or 12 months of involuntary leave...

For some students, leaving campus can mean leaving high-quality mental health care and university hospitals, which are traditionally key to helping troubled students get back on their feet...

But some colleges have another strategy: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign mandates counseling for suicidal students. Student must attend four therapy sessions following a suicide threat or attempt. Paul Joffe, director of the suicide prevention program, says the university's suicide rate has been cut in half since the program began in the 1980s. Of the 2,000 students who have gone through the sessions, only one has been asked to take leave. The student returned and graduated".

Some talks at the Centre this week

there are a number of talks this week that will be of interest.

On monday, David Meltzer gives the keynote talk at the "New Perspectives in Economics and Medicine" conference co-organised by Colm Harmon, Kevin Malone and myself. This takes place in Newman House on Stephens Green from 10am to 1pm. Des Fitzgerald, Cecily Kelleher, Colm Harmon, Kevin Malone (and me) also talking. Ian Walker is chairing a panel session.

Ian Walker is talking on Tuesday at 1pm in the seminar room.

I am giving the second in the Behavioural Workshops (on Neuroeconomics) at 4pm on Wednesday in the seminar room.

Jennifer Todd is giving a talk on 'Intergenerational transmission and ethnonational identity' in the seminar on Friday at 2pm as part of the qualitative seminar series.

Much more in common than divides us

the point of this paper is relatively straightforward and unsurprising but its a good one. in countries all around the world, people place strongest values on their families and communities and spend relatively little time thinking about ideology and at national level crave efficient economic management as their main aspiration. the paper below is in response to the current iran-us situation. global focusing efforts on these common values would be timely.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP1261.pdf

"The Stuff of Thought"

Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor at the Psychology Department in Harvard will be talking on Tuesday 9 October 2007 in the Robert Emmet Theatre, Arts Building, TCD 8.00 p.m.

"In his new book, The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker analyses what words actually mean and how we use them, and he reveals what this can tell us about ourselves. He shows how we use space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and uncovers the deeper structures of human thought that have been shaped by evolutionary history. He also explores the emotional impact of language, from names to swear words, and shows us the full power that it can have over us."

In Philosophy in the Flesh Lakoff and Johnson advocate an approach to understanding the mind as inherently embodied, conceives of thought as mostly unconscious, and abstract concepts as largely metaphorical. There seems to be a good deal of commonality between this approach and that proposed by Pinker and it will be interesting to see where they diverge.

Lakoff & Johnson view abstract concepts as rooted in concrete, low-level, sensorimotor and emotional processes. In particular, it is argued that more sophisticated concepts are built from base spatial relational processes. In behavioural economics Loewenstein has used the concept of stimulus proximity to signify its importance for discounting. This can be spatial, temporal, hypotheticality etc so if an apple is concrete, close at hand, at this moment in time it has close proximity and is more likely to induce discounting. The spatial and temporal relationship is particularly important as our understanding of time has been shown to be based in our concepts about space. Linking this back to Pinker's work how we organise our experience and language around layers of space, time, and force concepts may provide insight into how we perceive of and represent the future. It will definitely make for an interesting talk.

Review of The Stuff of Thought

McCloskey & Zilliak

Here is a discussion on the Columbia Statistics Blog about McCloskey and Zilliak's recent article: "Signifying Nothing: Reply to Hoover and Siegler."

McCloksey visited the UCD economics department this week to present her work in this area.

ANOVA: Analysis of Value

Is your research worth anything?

Fund UK postgrads or lose them, says Cambridge Vice-Chancellor

The vice-chancellor of Cambridge University has called for funding for UK postgraduates to be improved as "a matter of urgency". In her annual address at the start of the new academic year, Alison Richard warned that declining numbers of British students were applying for Cambridge doctoral degrees, with "dramatic shrinkage" in some fields (Times Higher Ed Supplement).

Locus of Control, Risk Preferences, Incentives and Economic Independence

An article today's Irish Times shows how an understanding of both psychological and economic concepts (such as those mentioned above) is necessary in order to fully analyse a social problem such as the "bamboccioni" in Italy, which can loosely be translated as big fat mamma's boys.

"If they won't go of their own accord, bribe them. That at least would appear to be the philosophy of Italian finance minister Tommaso Padoa Schioppa who has proposed a tax incentive to five million, home-living young Italians to encourage them to leave home and mamma's cooking.

According to research institute Eurispes, 59 per cent of Italians between the ages of 18 and 34 still live at home. That figure compares badly with other EU countries - 10 per cent in Spain, 12 per cent in Finland, 12.5 per cent in Denmark, 16.5 per cent in Germany, 19.5 per cent in Austria, 23 per cent in France and a respectable 20.5 per cent in Ireland.

Young people who fail to leave the nest, claims Mr Padoa-Schioppa, also fail to get married and develop independent lives for themselves.

Given that, in Italy as in Ireland, the standard excuse for not leaving home has always been high rental costs, the minister has proposed a measure in this year's budget which would allow young people between the ages of 20 and 30 to claim up to €999 in income tax allowance if they are paying rent (and if they earn less than €15,493.71 per annum).

Renato Brunetta, economist and parliamentarian for Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right opposition party Forza Italia said:

"These young people are the living symbols of a social system in which there is no movement, not even India with its caste system is so paralysed. The poor quality of the supply and demand of work and the relative inefficiency of the productive system mean that [ mamma's boys] show little propensity for professional, social or geographic movement and little willingness to take risks."

why economics is great

further evidence on the greatness of economics. how one humble theorist is saving the world

http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctprsp/savingtheworld.htm

"Lifespan extension and the growing number of elderly people, once considered as catastrophic, are now viewed as an indisputable progress."

A rather melodramatic way of putting it - but that's what the organisers of 19th World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics - http://www.gerontologyparis2009.com/site/view8b.php?id=119 They have two years, almost, to further encourage the "growing consensus" (and presumably take care of anyone who would dispute the progress that is lifespan extension)