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Stronger Impact (stronger + impact)
Selected AbstractsNeophyte species richness at the landscape scale under urban sprawl and climate warmingDIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, Issue 6 2009Michael P. Nobis Abstract Aim, Land use and climate are two major components of global environmental change but our understanding of their simultaneous and interactive effects upon biodiversity is still limited. Here, we investigated the relationship between the species richness of neophytes, i.e. non-native vascular plants introduced after 1500 AD, and environmental covariates to draw implications for future dynamics under land-use and climate change. Location, Switzerland, Central Europe. Methods, The distribution of vascular plants was derived from a systematic national grid of 1 km2 quadrates (n = 456; Swiss Biodiversity Monitoring programme) including 1761 species, 122 of which were neophytes. Generalized linear models (GLMs) were used to correlate neophyte species richness with environmental covariates. The impact of land-use and climate change was thereafter evaluated by projections for the years 2020 and 2050 using scenarios of moderate and strong changes for climate warming (IPCC) and urban sprawl (NRP 54). Results, Mean annual temperature and the amount of urban areas explained neophyte species richness best, with a high predictive power of the corresponding model (cross-validated D2 = 0.816). Climate warming had a stronger impact on the potential increase in the mean neophyte species richness (up to 191% increase by 2050) than ongoing urban sprawl (up to 10% increase) independently from variable interactions and model extrapolations to non-analogue environments. Main conclusions, In contrast to other vascular plants, the prediction of neophyte species richness at the landscape scale in Switzerland requires few variables only, and regions of highest species richness of the two groups do not coincide. The neophyte species richness is basically driven by climatic (temperature) conditions, and urban areas additionally modulate small-scale differences upon this coarse-scale pattern. According to the projections climate warming will contribute to the future increase in neophyte species richness much more than ongoing urbanization, but the gain in new neophyte species will be highest in urban regions. [source] Alternative Knowledge Strategies, Competitive Environment, and Organizational Performance in Small Manufacturing FirmsENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 4 2007Paul E. Bierly III This study examines the relationship between knowledge strategy (exploration or exploitation) and performance, and the possible moderating role of external environment variables. Results from a sample of small manufacturing firms indicate that exploration and exploitation are distinct and complementary constructs. The relationship between exploration and performance is linear and positive, while the relationship between exploitation and performance is concave, indicating that there is a point at which focusing on exploitation leads to reduced returns. Additionally, we find that the competitive environment moderates the relationship between exploitation and performance, such that exploitation has a stronger impact on performance in stable and high-tech environments than in dynamic and low-tech environments. Exploration also has a stronger impact on performance in high-tech environments than in low-tech environments. [source] Paradoxical increase of positive answers to the Cut-down, Annoyed, Guilt, Eye-opener (CAGE) questionnaire during a period of decreasing alcohol consumption: results from two population-based surveys in Île-de-France, 1991 and 2005ADDICTION, Issue 4 2008Antoine Messiah ABSTRACT Aims To describe trends of responses to the Cut-down, Annoyed, Guilt, Eye-opener (CAGE) questionnaire during a period of declining alcohol consumption, in a country with no temperance history. Design Two random-sample surveys, conducted in 1991 and 2005, respectively. Setting The adult population of Ile-de-France. Participants A total of 1183 subjects in 1991 and 5382 subjects in 2005. Measurements Responses to CAGE questions, obtained by face-to-face interviews in 1991 and by telephone in 2005. Results were standardized on the 2005 population structure. Findings The proportion of subjects giving at least two positive answers has increased by 4.2 times; the biggest increase was observed for the Guilt question (4.8 times) and the smallest for the Eye-opener question (2.6 times). Several increases were higher for women than for men: 12.9 times versus 3.3 times for two or more positive answers, 9.8 times versus 3.8 times for the Guilt question. Increases did not vary consistently by age. Conclusion These paradoxical trends do not support the use of CAGE in general population surveys. They confirm previous reports suggesting that CAGE was sensitive to community temperance level. They might reflect the emergence of a temperance movement in France, with stronger impact among women. This movement might be responsible for the fall in alcohol consumption. [source] Alcohol consumption and liver cirrhosis mortality with and without mention of alcohol,the case of CanadaADDICTION, Issue 9 2003Mats Ramstedt ABSTRACT Aims, To analyse post-war variations in per capita alcohol consumption in relation to gender-specific liver cirrhosis mortality in Canadian provinces and to assess the extent to which alcohol bears a different relation to cirrhosis deaths with mention of alcohol (alcoholic cirrhosis) compared to cirrhosis deaths without mention of alcohol (non-alcoholic cirrhosis). Data and method, Annual liver cirrhosis mortality rates by 5-year age groups were converted into gender-specific and age-adjusted mortality rates. Outcome measures included total cirrhosis,the conventional measure of liver cirrhosis,alcoholic cirrhosis and non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Per capita alcohol consumption was measured by alcohol sales and weighted with a 10-year distributed lag model. A graphical analysis was used to examine the regional relationship and the Box,Jenkins technique for time-series analysis was used to estimate the temporal relationship. Findings, Geographical variations in alcohol consumption corresponded to variations in total liver cirrhosis and particularly alcoholic cirrhosis, whereas non-alcoholic cirrhosis rates were not associated geographically with alcohol consumption. In general, for all provinces, time-series analyses revealed positive and statistically significant effects of changes in alcohol consumption on cirrhosis mortality. In Canada at large, a 1-litre increase in per capita consumption was associated with a 17% increase in male total cirrhosis rates and a 13% increase in female total cirrhosis rates. Alcohol consumption had a stronger impact on alcoholic cirrhosis, which increased by fully 30% per litre increase in alcohol per capita for men and women. Although the effect on the non-alcoholic cirrhosis rate was weaker (12% for men and 7% for women) it was nevertheless statistically significant and suggests that a large proportion of these deaths may actually be alcohol-related. Conclusions, Some well-established findings in alcohol research were confirmed by the Canadian experience: per capita alcohol consumption is related closely to death rates from liver cirrhosis and alcohol-related deaths tend to be under-reported in mortality statistics. [source] A Structural Investigation of Third-Currency Shocks to Bilateral Exchange Rates,INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2008Martin Melecky An exchange rate between two currencies can be materially affected by shocks emerging from a third country. A US demand shock, for example, can affect the exchange rate between the euro and the yen. Because positive US demand shocks have a greater positive impact on Japanese interest rates than on euro area rates, the yen appreciates against the euro in response. Using quarterly data on the United States, the euro area and Japan from 1981 to 2006, this paper shows that the third-currency effects are significant even when exchange rates evolve according to uncovered interest parity. This is because interest rates are typically set in response to output and inflation, which are in turn influenced by other exchange rates. More importantly, third-currency effects are also transmitted to the actual exchange rate through the expected future exchange rate, which is, in a multi-country set-up, influenced by third-countries' fundamentals and shocks. Third-currency effects have a stronger impact on the currency of a relatively more open economy. The analysis implies that small open economies should avoid strict forms of bilateral exchange rate targeting, since higher trade and financial openness work as a force intrinsically amplifying currency fluctuations. [source] Impacts of health and environmental consciousness on young female consumers' attitude towards and purchase of natural beauty productsINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSUMER STUDIES, Issue 6 2009Soyoung Kim Abstract This study investigated young female consumers' beauty product shopping behavioural patterns, their perceived importance of product attributes, and their attitude towards and purchase of natural beauty products. This study also examines whether consumers' product attitudes and shopping behaviours are influenced by their health and environmental consciousness. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 210 female college students enrolled at a south-eastern university in the US. In order to examine the impacts of both health and environmental consciousness on other selected variables, the respondents were divided into four groups based on their scores on the two variables, and a series of analysis of variance were conducted to compare characteristics of the four groups. The results showed that health and environmental consciousness significantly influenced the importance placed on beauty product attributes. Additionally, those with a high level of both health and environmental consciousness were significantly more positive in their evaluations than those with low scores on both variables in their perceptions of natural beauty products. Those with low scores on both variables were significantly less willing than the other groups to pay more for natural beauty products. Analysis of variance results also indicated that the two groups with a high level of environmental consciousness purchased natural beauty products more frequently than those with a low level of health and environmental consciousness, indicating a relatively stronger impact of environmental consciousness than health consciousness on frequency of natural beauty product purchases. Health and environmental consciousness were both significantly related to a respondent's perceived level of knowledge of beauty products and ability to distinguish natural from conventional beauty products. [source] Screening for depression and anxiety: correlates of non-response and cohort attrition in the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA)INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF METHODS IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH, Issue 4 2009Willem Jan Van Der Veen Abstract A major problem in the analysis of attrition of cohorts in studies on mental health problems is that data on those who do not participate at the outset of a study are largely unavailable. It is not known how underlying psychopathology affects the first stages of screening where non-response and selectivity are usually highest. This article presents results of one of the centres of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA), a longitudinal study aimed at describing the long-term course and consequences of depression and anxiety disorders. The aim is to describe the different ways of attrition during the first NESDA-wave in a cohort of patients aged 18,65 years of the Registration Network Groningen and to analyse whether attrition is related to gender, age and psychopathology as recorded in general practice. The attrition of the study cohort (n = 8475) was highest during the first stages, eventually leading to a population of 169 patients only who participated in the full NESDA-programme. Probabilities of transition from one stage of the screening process to the next were regressed on selected background variables using binary logistic regression. Correlates of participation were being female and being older (>40). Psychopathology was an important variable in the formation of the initial sample cohort, but only had a weak influence on patient response to the screening questionnaire. Study design factors had a stronger impact on the changing composition of the cohort at each screening stage compared to patient factors. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] An application of terror management theory in the design of social and health-related anti-smoking appealsJOURNAL OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Issue 3 2010Ingrid M. Martin Marketers and public policy makers continue to be plagued with the problem of creating effective communications, which can increase the probability of complying with risk avoidance behavior related to smoking. Using Terror Management Theory (TMT) as a theoretical basis, we provide a rationale as to why traditional anti-smoking appeals focusing on negative health consequences are not impactful. We use the implications of the theory to predict and show that an appeal focusing on social exclusion should be more motivating than a health appeal to encourage smokers to quit in the short and long run. Specifically, we conduct an experiment designed to investigate the impact of mortality salience and self-esteem on whether college-age smokers will comply with anti-smoking messages. We observe that social exclusion messages compared to health effect messages are particularly effective in reducing intentions to smoke for college-age smokers who derive their self-esteem in part from smoking. Overall, our results show that mortality salience interacts with self-esteem in terms of influencing the probability of smoking in the short run and that social exclusion appeals have a stronger impact than health-related appeals both in reducing long run smoking intention and emphasizing the salience of health-related consequences of smoking. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] RELIABILITY OF SENSORY ASSESSORS: ISSUES OF COMPLEXITYJOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES, Issue 1 2009JANNA BITNES ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to investigate whether the sensory performance of assessors in a sensory panel maybe explained by complexity of evaluated product. We aimed to investigate whether we could observe a decline in sensory performance when increasing the complexity of the product. The products increased in number of constituents from mixtures of sucrose, sodium chloride, citric acid and caffeine in water, to the foods ice tea and tomato soup constituting different levels of the same substances. Candidates who succeeded evaluating one product were not always successful evaluating others. Few subjects were successful in everything. The conclusion was that there is only minor systematic decline with increasing complexity of products. The authors emphasize that definition of complexity involves more than just counting number of constituents and taste sensations, and suggest that minor differences in the task given to the assessor might explain different performances. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Practical use of the research presented in the present paper is in a sensory evaluation context. It is important for the users of sensory data to find out how the profiling should be organized to achieve optimum output, and in specific, the need for extensive training when dealing with a more complex product. The present study hypothesized that sensory assessors would have more difficulties evaluating a more complex product. However, the results showed that panel leaders should be more concerned with the task variables in the sensory evaluation. Even a minor shift in task variables had a stronger impact on the performance and reliability of the assessors than increasing number of constituents and/or stimuli sensations of the product. This study did not demonstrate a need for extensive training when dealing with a more complex product as hypothesized. [source] Deployment stressors, gender, and mental health outcomes among Gulf War I veteransJOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, Issue 2 2005Dawne S. Vogt An Erratum has been published for this article in Journal of Traumatic Stress 18(3) 2005, 271,284 []. Findings indicate that war-zone exposure has negative implications for the postdeployment adjustment of veterans; however, most studies have relied on limited conceptualizations of war-zone exposure and focused on male samples. In this study, an array of deployment stressors that were content valid for both female and male Gulf War I military personnel was examined to elucidate gender differences in war-zone exposure and identify gender-based differential associations between stressors and mental health outcomes. While women and men were exposed to both mission-related and interpersonal stressors and both stressor categories were associated with mental health outcomes, women reported more interpersonal stressors and these stressors generally had a stronger impact on women's than on men's mental health. Exceptions are described, and implications are discussed. [source] Reputation and Relevance of Economics JournalsKYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 2 2003Michael Bräuninger Summary We analyse the interrelationship between economics journals' relevance and reputation. While reputation and relevance positively affect each other, relevance has a much stronger impact on reputation than reputation on relevance. Citation frequency is a key determinant for both journal reputation and relevance, but effects on journal reputation are nearly twice as strong. Specialised journals are, ceteris paribus, considered less relevant and, therefore, also less reputed, even though specialisation has a positive direct effect on reputation. German-speaking economists find German journals more relevant, but at the same time also less reputed than foreign journals. Age and volume effects are also analysed. [source] Unemployment and Earnings Assimilation of ImmigrantsLABOUR, Issue 3 2002Pål Longva The regional unemployment elasticity of annual earnings for non-OECD immigrants is found to be more than three times larger than for natives, using micro data covering all immigrants in Norway in 1990 and a random sample of natives. The decline in relative earnings of non-OECD immigrants from 1980 to 1990 can largely be explained by the stronger impact of rising unemployment on immigrant earnings. These results highlight the importance of controlling for different period effects caused by fluctuating unemployment in panel studies of earnings assimilation among immigrants. [source] Analytics and Beliefs: Competing Explanations for Defining Problems and Choosing Allies and Opponents in Collaborative Environmental ManagementPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2010Christopher M. Weible The rationale for collaborative environmental management often hinges on two factors: first, specialized training creates biased analytics that require multidisciplinary approaches to solve policy problems; second, normative beliefs among competing actors must be included in policy making to give the process legitimacy and to decide trans-scientific problems. These two factors are tested as drivers of conflict in an analysis of 76 watershed partnerships. The authors find that analytical bias is a secondary factor to normative beliefs; that depicting the primary driver of conflict in collaborative environmental management as between experts and nonexperts is inaccurate; that compared to the "life" and "physical" sciences, the social sciences and liberal arts have a stronger impact on beliefs and choice of allies and opponents; and that multiple measures are needed to capture the effect of analytical biases. The essay offers lessons for public administrators and highlights the limitations and generalizations of other governing approaches. [source] Law and Finance in Transition EconomiesTHE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 2 2000Katharina Pistor This paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of legal change in the protection of shareholder and creditor rights in transition economies and its impact on the propensity of firms to raise external finance. Following La Porta et al. (1998), the paper constructs an expanded set of legal indices to capture a range of potential conflicts between different stakeholders of the firm. It supplements the analysis of the law on the books with an analysis of the effectiveness of legal institutions. Our main finding is that the effectiveness of legal institutions has a much stronger impact on external finance than does the law on the books, despite legal change that has substantially improved shareholder and creditor rights. This finding supports the proposition that legal transplants and extensive legal reforms are not sufficient for the evolution of effective legal and market institutions. [source] AN ANALYSIS OF MONETARY POLICY SHOCKS IN JAPAN: A FACTOR AUGMENTED VECTOR AUTOREGRESSIVE APPROACH,THE JAPANESE ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2007MASAHIKO SHIBAMOTO This paper analyses monetary policy shocks in Japan using a factor augmented vector autoregressive approach. There are three main findings. First, the time lags with which the monetary policy shocks are transmitted vary between the various macroeconomic time series. These include several series that have not been included thus far in standard vector autoregressive analysis, including housing starts and employment indices. Second, a coherent picture of monetary policy effects on the economy is obtained. Third, it is found that monetary policy shocks have a stronger impact on real variables, such as employment and housing starts, than industrial production. [source] Order imbalance and the pricing of index futuresTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 7 2007Joseph K.W. Fung This study examines whether the aggregate order imbalance for index stocks can explain the arbitrage spread between index futures and the underlying cash index. The study covers the period of the Asian financial crisis and includes wide variations in order imbalance and the indexfutures basis. The analysis controls for realistic trading costs and actual dividend payments. The results indicate that the arbitrage spread is positively related to the aggregate order imbalance in the underlying index stocks; negative order-imbalance has a stronger impact than positive order imbalance. Violations of the upper no-arbitrage bound are related to positive order imbalance; of the lower no-arbitrage bound to negative order imbalance. Asymmetric response times to negative and positive spreads can be attributed to the difficulty, cost, and risk of short stock arbitrage when the futures are below their no-arbitrage value. The significant relationship between order imbalance and arbitrage spread confirms that index arbitrageurs are important providers of liquidity in the futures market when the stock market is in disequilibrium. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:697,717, 2007 [source] Landslides and Their Contribution to Land-cover Change in the Mountains of Mexico and Central America,BIOTROPICA, Issue 4 2006Carla Restrepo ABSTRACT Landsliding is a natural process influencing montane ecosystems, particularly in areas with elevated rainfall and seismic activity. Yet, to date, little effort has been made to quantify the contribution of this process to land-cover change. Focusing on the mountains of Mexico and Central America (M-CA), we estimated the contribution of landsliding to land-cover change at two scales. At the scale of M-CA, we classified the terrain into major landforms and entered in a GIS historical data on earthquake- and rainfall-triggered landslides. At the scale of the Sierra de Las Minas of Guatemala, we investigated Landsat TM data to map rainfall-triggered landslides. During the past 110 yr, >136,200 ha of land in the mountains of M-CA have been affected by landslides, which translates into disturbance rates exceeding 0.317 percent/century. In Sierra de Las Minas, rainfall associated with hurricane Mitch affected 1765 ha of forest, or equivalently, landslides triggered by storms of this magnitude transformed between 0.196 (return time of 500 yr) and 1.290 (return time of 75 yr) percent of forest/century. Although landsliding results in smaller rates of land-cover change than deforestation, we hypothesize that it has a stronger impact on ecosystems, both in qualitative and quantitative terms, given its influence on vegetation and soil. Moreover, interactions between landsliding and deforestation may be altering the expression of this complex process such that the few protected areas in the mountains of M-CA may represent the only possibility for the conservation of this process. RESUMEN Los deslizamientos de tierra representan un fenómeno natural que afecta a todos los ecosistemas montañosos, particularmente aquellos que se encuentran en áreas de elevadas precipitaciones y actividad sísmica. Sin embargo, hasta el presente los esfuerzos por cuantificar la contribución de este proceso a cambios de cobertura de suelo han sido limitados. Enfocados en las montañas de México y Centro America (M-OA) estimamos que la contribución de los deslizamientos de tierra con cambios de cobertura de suelo a dos escalas. A la escala de M-CA, clasificamos el terreno basado en clases mayores de relieve e incluímos datos históricos de sismos y tormentas que han provocado deslizamientos de tierra en un SIG. A la escala de la Sierra de Las Minas en Guatemala, investigamos datos Landsat TM para identificar y localizar deslizamientos de tierra disperados por lluvia. Durante los últimos 110 años >136,200 ha de tierra han sido transformados por deslizamientos de tierra en las montañas de M-CA, lo que se traduce en tasas de perturbación >0.317 por ciento/siglo. En la Sierra de Las Minas, las lluvias asociadas con el huracán Mitch transformaron 1765 ha de bosque, lo que es equivalente a tasas de perturbación por deslizamientos de tierra entre 0.196 (tasa de retorno de 500 años) y 1.290 por ciento/siglo (tasa de retorno de 75 años). A pesar de que las tasas de cambio de cobertura vegetal por deslizamientos son menores que las causadas por deforestación, hipotetizamos que tienen un mayor impacto en estos ecosistemas tanto en términos cualitativos como cuantitativos por su influencia sobre la vegetación y el suelo. Además, interacciones entre los deslizamientos de tierra y la deforestación podrían estar afectando la expresión de este complejo proceso de tal forma que las pocas áreas montañosas de México y Centro América que están protegidas representan la única posibilidad para la conservación de este proceso. [source] A history of sexual abuse and health: a Nordic multicentre studyBJOG : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS & GYNAECOLOGY, Issue 10 2004Malene Hilden Objectives To determine if a history of sexual abuse is associated with objective and subjective indicators of health and if certain abusive incidents had a stronger impact on health than others. Design A cross-sectional, multicentre study. Setting Five gynaecological departments in the five Nordic countries. Sample Three thousand five hundred and thirty-nine gynaecology patients. Methods The NorVold Abuse Questionnaire (NorAQ) on abuse history and current health was mailed to all patients who consented to participate. Main outcome measures Reason for index visit at the gynaeocological clinic as well as several questions on health were recorded. General health status was measured as self-estimated health, psychosomatic symptoms (headache, abdominal pain, muscle, weakness, dizziness), number of health care visits and number of periods on sick leave. Result A history of sexual abuse was reported by 20.7% of respondents. A history of sexual abuse was significantly associated with chronic pelvic pain as reason for index visit (P < 0.01), laparoscopic surgery (P < 0.01), psychosomatic symptoms (P < 0.01), self-estimated poor health (P < 0.01), many health care visits (P < 0.01) and high incidence of sick leave (P < 0.01). Several subgroups within the group of sexually abused women were more likely to report poor health: women abused as both children and adults, women who experienced additional emotional and/or physical abuse and women abused by a person they knew. Conclusion Sexual abuse has a profound impact on women's health. Taking a history of sexual abuse seems particularly warranted when the patient presents with chronic pelvic pain or symptoms of a vague and diffuse nature. [source] Tuning the Magnetic Properties of LixCrTi0.25Se2 (0.03,x,0.7) by Directed Deintercalation of LithiumCHEMISTRY - A EUROPEAN JOURNAL, Issue 16 2008Malte Behrens Dr. Abstract X-ray diffraction (XRD), in situ energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXRD), X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES), extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), and magnetic measurements were applied to investigate the effects of lithium deintercalation on pseudolayered Li0.70CrTi0.25Se2. A detailed picture of structural changes during the deintercalation process was obtained by combining the results of EDXRD and EXAFS. Removal of Li from the host,guest complex leads to anisotropic contraction of the unit cell with stronger impact on the c axis, which is the stacking axis of the layers. The EDXRD experiments evidence that the shrinkage of the lattice parameters with decreasing xLi in LixCrTi0.25Se2 is nonlinear in the beginning and then becomes linear. Analysis of the EXAFS spectra clearly shows that the Cr/TiSe distances are affected in a different manner by Li removal. The CrSe bond lengths decrease, whereas the TiSe bonds lengthen when the Li content is reduced, which is consistent with XRD data. Magnetic measurements reveal a change from predominantly antiferromagnetic exchange (,p=,300,K) interactions for the pristine material to ferromagnetic exchange interactions (,=25,K) for the fully intercalated material. Thus, the magnetic properties can be altered under ambient conditions by directed adjustment of the dominant magnetic exchange. The unusual magnetic behavior can be explained on the basis of the variation of the metal,metal distances and the Cr-Se-Cr angles with x, which were determined by Rietveld refinements. Owing to competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic exchange interactions and disorder, the magnetic ground state of the intercalated materials is characterized by spin-glass or spin-glass-like behavior. [source] Computational Models for the Combination of Advice and Individual LearningCOGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 2 2009Guido Biele Abstract Decision making often takes place in social environments where other actors influence individuals' decisions. The present article examines how advice affects individual learning. Five social learning models combining advice and individual learning-four based on reinforcement learning and one on Bayesian learning-and one individual learning model are tested against each other. In two experiments, some participants received good or bad advice prior to a repeated multioption choice task. Receivers of advice adhered to the advice, so that good advice improved performance. The social learning models described the observed learning processes better than the individual learning model. Of the models tested, the best social learning model assumes that outcomes from recommended options are more positively evaluated than outcomes from nonrecommended options. This model correctly predicted that receivers first adhere to advice, then explore other options, and finally return to the recommended option. The model also predicted accurately that good advice has a stronger impact on learning than bad advice. One-time advice can have a long-lasting influence on learning by changing the subjective evaluation of outcomes of recommended options. [source] Non-linear finance,growth nexusTHE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 3 2009A threshold with instrumental variable approach Financial development; economic growth; instrumental variable; threshold regression Abstract This paper revisits the question of whether the finance,growth nexus varies with the stages of economic development. Using a novel threshold regression with the instrumental variables approach proposed by Caner and Hansen (2004) to the dataset used in Levine et al. (2000) we detect overwhelming evidence in support of a positive linkage between financial development and economic growth, and this positive effect is larger in the low-income countries than in the high-income ones. The data also reveal that financial development tends to have stronger impacts on capital accumulation and productivity growth in the low-income countries than in the high-income ones. The findings are robust to alternative financial development measures and conditioning information sets. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||