Our Founder—IGTI's R. Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer and the Construction of Value

This paper challenges the common assumption that economic agents know their tastes. After reviewing previous research showing that valuation of ordinary products and experiences can be manipulated by non-normative cues, we present three studies showing that in some cases people do not have a pre-existing sense of whether an experience is good or bad—even when they have experienced a sample of i...

-1 - Tom Sawyer and the Myth of Fundamental Value

Tom Sawyer and the construction of value Dan

This paper challenges the common assumption that economic agents know their tastes. After reviewing previous research showing that valuation of ordinary products and experiences can be manipulated by non-normative cues, we present three studies showing that in some cases people do not have a pre-existing sense of whether an experience is good or bad—even when they have experienced a sample of i...

Engaging significant others: the Tom Sawyer approach to case management.

I recent years, case management approaches with severely mentally ill clients have focused on assertive, in vivo interventions by case managers with small caseloads (1,2). Although these interventions are demonstrably effective (2), economic pressures have led many programs to increase caseloads and decrease intensity of case management services. In this column, I will discuss ways in which soc...

A Sawyer Duality Principle for Radially Monotone Functions in R

Let f be a non-negative function on R, which is radially monotone (0 < f ↓ r). For 1 < p < ∞, g ≥ 0 and v a weight function, an equivalent expression for sup f↓r ∫ Rn fg (∫ Rn f pv ) 1 p is proved as a generalization of the usual Sawyer duality principle. Some applications involving boundedness of certain integral operators are also given.