Are Imitative Strategies Game Specific? Experimental Evidence from Market Games

This paper studies imitation in price and quantity markets. We analyse the results of two experiments designed with different information settings. The analysis shows that information is used differently and has diverse effects according to the market under investigation.Cournot, Bertrand experiments, imitation

"It's not that I'm a racist, it's that they are Roma": Roma Discrimination and Returns to Education in South Eastern Europe

This paper uses a unique survey of Roma and non-Roma in South Eastern Europe to evaluate competing explanations for the poor performance of Roma in the labour market. The analysis seeks to identify the determinants of educational achievement, employment and wages for Roma and non-Roma. LIML methods are employed to control for endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias in the estimates. Nonlinear and linear decomposition techniques are applied in order to identify the extent of discrimination. The key results are that: the employment returns to education are lower for Roma than for non-Roma whilst the wage returns are broadly similar for the two groups; the similar wage gains translate into a smaller absolute wage gain for Roma than for non-Roma given their lower average wages; the marginal absolute gains from education for Roma are only a little over one-third of the marginal absolute gains to education for majority populations; and, there is evidence to support the idea that a substantial part of the differential in labour market outcomes is due to discrimination. Explanations of why Roma fare so badly tend to fall into one of two camps: 'low education' vs. 'discrimination'. The analysis suggests that both of these explanations have some basis in fact. Moreover, a direct implication of the lower absolute returns to education accruing to Roma is that their lower educational participation is, at least partially, due to rational economic calculus. Consequently, policy needs to address both low educational participation and labour market discrimination contemporaneously.Roma, discrimination, transition, returns to education

Eliciting Motives for Trust and Reciprocity by Attitudinal and Behavioural Measures

Value Surveys may reveal well-behaved societies by the statistical treatment of the agents’ declarations of compliance with social values. Similarly, the results of experiments conducted on games with conflict of interest trace back to two important primitives of social capital – trust and reciprocity – which can be used to explain deviations from the Nash equilibrium and which lead to the optimal cooperative outcome. In this paper we attempt to elicit the true motive(s) underlying the behaviour of players in experimental trust and dictator games and suggest that the most informative utilization of surveys in this regard goes beyond the simple comparison of answers to a questionnaire with actual behaviour. Specifically the paper uses descriptive statistics and ordered probit models to analyse whether, and to what extent, answers to a questionnaire about attitudes to trusting and reciprocating predict subjects’ behaviour and, by comparing behaviour in Trust and Dictator Game, disentangles the strategic and altruistic motivations. We find no simple or direct correlation between behavioural trust or trustworthiness and attitudinal trust or disposition to reciprocate. However, dividing subjects according to attitudinal trust and trustworthiness, we observe that the link between the questionnaire and experimental sessions is more subtle than the mere correlation between average attitudes and average behaviours. The information conveyed by a survey appears to be much more powerful ex post – once the two motivational components have been separated out.trust, reciprocity, experimental economics, ordered probit

It's not that I'm a racist, it's that they are Roma: Roma discrimination and returns to education in South Eastern Europe

This paper uses a unique survey of Roma and non-Roma in South Eastern Europe to evaluate competing explanations for the poor performance of Roma in the labour market. The analysis seeks to identify the determinants of educational achievement, employment and wages for Roma and non-Roma. LIML methods are employed to control for endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias in the estimates. Nonlinear and linear decomposition techniques are applied in order to identify the extent of discrimination. The key results are that: the employment returns to education are lower for Roma than for non-Roma whilst the wage returns are broadly similar for the two groups; the similar wage gains translate into a smaller absolute wage gain for Roma than for non-Roma given their lower average wages; the marginal absolute gains from education for Roma are only a little over one-third of the marginal absolute gains to education for majority populations; and, there is evidence to support the idea that a substantial part of the differential in labour market outcomes is due to discrimination. Explanations of why Roma fare so badly tend to fall into one of two camps: 'low education' vs. 'discrimination'. The analysis suggests that both of these explanations have some basis in fact. Moreover, a direct implication of the lower absolute returns to education accruing to Roma is that their lower educational participation is, at least partially, due to rational economic calculus. Consequently, policy needs to address both low educational participation and labour market discrimination contemporaneously

Youth unemployment

It's a pretty tough time to be a young European seeking to enter the labour market, but what exactly is the nature of the problem facing young people trying to find employment? It has long been recognized that unemployment is associated with a series of negative health consequences, both physical and psychological which tend to grow disproportionately with the duration of unemployment. Unemployment is also associated with unhappiness - both for those experiencing it as well as those who are employed but fear unemployment in a time of high job insecurity and it is widely understood that unhappiness is of itself linked to mental and physical ill-health. There is also a substantial body of evidence which links youth unemployment (and non-employment) to crime. Not only is crime costly for society it is also costly for the individual. Moreover, any such effects are likely to have long-term consequences; once a path of marginalization and criminality has been embarked upon, one's future prospects (and expectations) are likely to adjust accordingly. Thus, unemployment is bad for young people and for society as a whole; however, equally important, the detrimental consequences of youth unemployment are largely associated with longer term unemployment rather than unemployment per se. It is here that the really harmful effects of the recession have been felt by young people. During the recession, the prevalence of long-term unemployment amongst the young increased by more than one third. Moreover, this is not the only recent negative trend in young people's labour market experience with longer term consequences. In recent years, there has been increasing recognition that joblessness - or NEET - as it is now usually called, and not just unemployment per se is an issue for concern. Similarly, the emergence of high levels of temporary and part-time employment amongst young people and the longer term impacts of these contractual forms is also becoming a significant issue. This paper looks at recent trends in youth unemployment and joblessness and seeks to clarify some issues related to the nature of the youth labour market 'problem'

Fat and Out in Salerno and Province: Adolescent Obesity and Early School Leaving in Southern Italy

In this paper, we focus on the causes and consequences of adolescent obesity from an economic perspective. The paper examines the determinants of obesity and its role in influencing early school leaving amongst adolescents in the province of Salerno in Southern Italy. A simple human capital investment model is employed and this provides a framework within which to analyse the interrelated 'decisions' regarding schooling and overeating, taking into account the importance of time preference and the differential effects of adolescent obesity for males and females. We find that: a) there is a strong and robust positive effect of obesity on early school leaving; b) there are significant gender differences in the nature of this relationship; and, c) although not statistically significant, there is support for the idea that contextual factors – such as the type of school attended - are important in determining the effects of obesity on early school leaving. These findings have important policy implications. In particular, evidence on the positive causal link running from obesity to early school leaving suggests: i) that action aimed at reducing obesity – such as the encouragement of sporting activity - may also have beneficial effects in terms of reducing early school leaving rates; ii) the introduction of financial incentives to encourage educational participation; and, iii) the significant differences identified between young men and young women suggest the adoption of some gender- specific policy measures.early school-leaving, obesity

From cadaver to computer: Incorporating computers into the topographical anatomy laboratory

Traditionally, students have studied human anatomy through dissection and prosection. This requires considerable input from demonstrators, with students working mainly in large groups. Increasing student numbers, decreasing funds for staff, and a need to encourage students to develop independent learning skills that will be of value throughout their professional lives, have meant that the nature of their learning in the Topographical Anatomy Laboratory has had to change. The situation in which groups of students are guided by demonstrators has moved towards a more self‐directed learning environment. Several innovations have been introduced at University College London, including a multimedia laboratory which is the focus of this paper. The results of the evaluation and the lessons learned from the early stages of setting up a self‐directed learning environment are presented

measures of social capital and trust

Trust and trustworthiness are important components of social capital and much attention has been devoted to the problems of their correct evaluation. Attitudinal survey questions as reported in the EVS – European Value Survey - are often regarded as inefficient indicators of trust, since they lack of behavioural underpinnings (Putnam, 1995) which one might desire when measuring trust. In this paper, we consider alternative measures of trust and trustworthiness, based on behavioural assumptions. We construct two relative behavioural measures of trust (RBM1 and RBM2), both based on the ex post measurement of trust, once individuals are informed on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which they have been allocated during the experiment. Our main finding is that the relative behavioural measures show that trust strongly varies once the individual is informed on the on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which he\she has been allocated during the experiment. This difference is higher the higher is the family level of income and the parental education status. As for previous findings (Glaeser et al., 2000, Lazzarini, 2005) which have found no correlation between attitudinal and behavioural measures of trust, we find that relative behavioural measures are not correlated to attitudinal measures but they are strongly correlated to groups’ trustworthiness. We also find that similar social preferences profiles (between Senders and Recipients) tend to enhance the individual level of trust, in the RBM2 context. This result seems to confirm the importance of the homogeneity of the social environment when studying the effects of policy interventions (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2002).social capital, trust, experiments

Virtual reconstruction of cranial remains : the H. Heidelbergensis, Kabwe 1 fossil

Human skeletal remains and fossils are often fragmented and distorted, limiting further research. Thus, reconstruction has long been used to restore the original morphology of specimens and enable subsequent research. With advances in computing and imaging, virtual reconstruction approaches are increasingly being applied to this task. Thus, models of fragmentary remains are increasingly being reconstructed from medical images, using visualization software and geometric morphometric techniques to repair defects and restore symmetry. In this chapter we review some virtual reconstruction techniques and provide a description of CT based virtual reconstruction applied to a fossil hominin, the Kabwe 1 cranium. This specimen is dated from 150 - 250 thousand years ago and was reconstructed to enable further biomechanical research, however the approaches and tools used to make the reconstruction are directly applicable to more recent skeletal remains