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Expected Rewards (expected + reward)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting40%

Selected Abstracts

Tonically active neurons in the striatum differentiate between delivery and omission of expected reward in a probabilistic task context

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 3 2009
Paul Apicella
Abstract Tonically active neurons (TANs) in the primate striatum are responsive to rewarding stimuli and they are thought to be involved in the storage of stimulus,reward associations or habits. However, it is unclear whether these neurons may signal the difference between the prediction of reward and its actual outcome as a possible neuronal correlate of reward prediction errors at the striatal level. To address this question, we studied the activity of TANs from three monkeys trained in a classical conditioning task in which a liquid reward was preceded by a visual stimulus and reward probability was systematically varied between blocks of trials. The monkeys' ability to discriminate the conditions according to probability was assessed by monitoring their mouth movements during the stimulus,reward interval. We found that the typical TAN pause responses to the delivery of reward were markedly enhanced as the probability of reward decreased, whereas responses to the predictive stimulus were somewhat stronger for high reward probability. In addition, TAN responses to the omission of reward consisted of either decreases or increases in activity that became stronger with increasing reward probability. It therefore appears that one group of neurons differentially responded to reward delivery and reward omission with changes in activity into opposite directions, while another group responded in the same direction. These data indicate that only a subset of TANs could detect the extent to which reward occurs differently than predicted, thus contributing to the encoding of positive and negative reward prediction errors that is relevant to reinforcement learning. [source]

Risk and Return in the 20th and 21st Centuries

BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW, Issue 2 2000
Elroy Dimson
The single most important contemporary issue in finance is the equity risk premium. This drives future equity returns, and is the key determinant of the cost of capital. The risk premium , the expected reward for bearing the risk of investing in equities, rather than in low-risk investments such as bills or bonds , is usually estimated from historical data. This article starts by summarising new evidence on historical returns in twelve major world markets from the authors' recent book, ,The Millennium Book: A Century of Investment Returns'. The authors show that the historical equity risk premium has been lower than previously believed, and argue that the future risk premium is likely to be lower still. They discuss what this implies for the cost of capital, stock market values, and companies' target rates of return. They suggest that many companies are seeking too high a rate of return and thus run the risk of under-investing. [source]

The Roots of Entrepreneurship and Labour Demand: Individual Ability and Low Risk Aversion

ECONOMICA, Issue 269 2001
C. M. Van Praag
This paper develops a model as a means to explain business formation and the labour demand of entrepreneurs. An individual will become an entrepreneur if the expected rewards surpass the wages of employment, and the expected rewards depend on an assessment of individual ability and on risk attitude. Actual ability determines success and hence the demand for wage labour of the firm. In equilibrium these factors govern the distribution of a given workforce over entrepreneurs and employees. The model is fitted to Dutch survey data. The empirical results confirm the importance of both risk-taking and ability for successful entrepreneurship. [source]

Abnormal associative encoding in orbitofrontal neurons in cocaine-experienced rats during decision-making

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 9 2006
Thomas A. Stalnaker
Abstract Recent evidence has linked exposure to addictive drugs to an inability to employ information about adverse consequences, or outcomes, to control behavior. For instance, addicts and drug-experienced animals fail to adapt their behavior to avoid adverse outcomes in gambling and reversal tasks or after changes in the value of expected rewards. These deficits are similar to those caused by damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, suggesting that addictive drugs may cause long-lasting changes in the representation of outcome associations in a circuit that includes the orbitofrontal cortex. Here we test this hypothesis by recording from orbitofrontal neurons in a discrimination task in rats previously exposed to cocaine (30 mg/kg i.p. for 14 days). We found that orbitofrontal neurons recorded in cocaine-experienced rats failed to signal the adverse outcome at the time a decision was made in the task. The loss of this signal was associated with abnormal changes in response latencies on aversive trials. Furthermore, upon reversal of the cue,outcome associations, orbitofrontal neurons in cocaine-treated rats with enduring reversal impairments failed to reverse their cue-selectivity, while orbitofrontal neurons in cocaine-treated rats with normal performance showed an increase in the plasticity of cue-selective firing after reversal. These results provide direct neurophysiological evidence that exposure to cocaine can cause behaviorally relevant changes in the processing of associative information in a circuit that includes the orbitofrontal cortex. [source]

Counterproductive Work Behavior and Organisational Citizenship Behavior: Are They Opposite Forms of Active Behavior?

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 1 2010
Paul E. Spector
We question the common supposition that active acts of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and organisational citizenship behavior (OCB) are negatively related in that people who perform one tend not to perform the other, and that they tend to relate oppositely to potential antecedents. We argue that under some circumstances these active behaviors may occur together or sequentially. Using an emotion focused framework, we discuss five situations that lead from one form of behavior to the other: Understimulation at work, co-worker lack of performance, organisational constraints, lack of expected rewards for OCB, and unjustified (to the actor) acts of CWB. Finally, we provide suggestions for studying these behaviors episodically as opposed to aggregating frequencies of behavior over extended periods of time. Nous mettons en doute l'idée commune selon laquelle les actions relevant d'un comportement professionnel contre-productif (CWB) et les conduites citoyennes dans l'organisation (OCB) sont négativement corrélées en ce sens que les individus qui adopteraient les unes auraient tendance à se détourner des autres et qu'elles seraient liées en sens contraire aux antécédents potentiels. Nous pensons que dans certains cas ces comportements actifs peuvent émerger conjointement ou à la suite les uns des autres. A partir d'un schéma centré sur l'émotion, nous analysons cinq situations qui orientent d'une forme de comportement vers l'autre: le manque de stimulants au travail, les médiocres performances d'un collègue, les contraintes organisationnelles, l'absence des gratifications attendues pour l'OCB et des actions de CWB injustifiées (contre l'acteur). Nous proposons enfin d'étudier ces conduites sur des laps de temps définis plutôt que d'additionner des occurrences de comportement sur de longues périodes. [source]