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Partial liquidation under reference-dependent preferences

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 17:15:22 GMT

Can a multiple optimal stopping model aid investors in selling a divisible asset position?

Investors have Sshaped reference-dependent preferences whereby utility is defined over gains and losses relative to a reference level, and is concave over gains and convex over losses. In this paper the authors found that in contrast to the extant literature, investors may partially liquidate the asset at distinct price thresholds above the reference level.

The Effect of Self-Awareness on Dishonesty

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 13:40:00 GMT

What is the relationship between dishonesty and self awareness? Can this realtionshbe explained by cognitive dissonnace?

In this working paper Ceren Beng¨u C¸ ıbık and our newest academic lead Professor Daniel Sgroi explore the relationship between self-awareness and dishonesty in a preregistered experiment with 1,260 subjects. By varying vary the level of awareness of subjects’ own past dishonesty and exploring the impact on behaviour in tasks that include the scope to lie: results showed that We find that in single-person non-interactive tasks, self-awareness of dishonesty helps to lower dishonesty in the future. However, in tasks that are competitive in nature becoming more aware of past dishonesty raises the likelihood of dishonesty. In this thought provoking paper, results showed when and why pointing out those who have been (dis)honest in the past can be an effective way to induce honesty in the future and when it might back-fire badly. It perhaps also shed some light on perceived increases in dishonesty in politics, the media and everyday life.

Measuring National Happiness with Music

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 09:16:00 GMT

Professor Daniel Sgroi and Dr Anthony Tuckwell, working with computer scientists Dr Alessandro Ragano and Dr Emmanouil Benetos create a new measure of national life satisfaction based on the emotional content of a country’s most popular songs. Using machine learning to detect the valence of the UK’s chart-topping song of each year since the 1970s, they show that it is very effective at predicting the leading survey-based measure of life satisfaction. Moreover they find that music is better able to predict life satisfaction than a recently-proposed measure of happiness based on the happiness enshrined within words (a method pioneered by Professors Thomas Hills, Daniel Sgroi and co-authors and published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2019). Our results have implications for the role of music in society, confirming the place of music as a “language of the emotions” and building on the use of language as a practical measure of public sentiment.

Reading the past like an open book - researchers use text to measure two hundred years of happiness

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 14:32:00 GMT

Scientists from Warwick have discovered the year we were at our happiest. Our national happiness levels of previous centuries (1820-2009) measured for the first time.

New publication: 'The theory and practice of "nudging": changing health behaviours' - Ivo Vlaev

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 13:55:00 GMT

New publication: 'The theory and practice of "nudging": changing health behaviours' - Ivo Vlaev

Data science tackles some of society's biggest issues

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 13:52:00 GMT

Services for homeless people could be improved greatly through the use of data science, thanks to the UK's inaugural 12-week Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) programme.

How to become more patient - add a zero

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 14:01:00 GMT

Daniel Read presents new ideas on how to nudge people into thinking more of the future when making choices that extend into it.