Why it is Sometimes Fair to Blame Agents for Unavoidable Actions and Omissions

Tackling HIV in MENA: Talk Is Not Enough–It Is Time for Bold Actions: A Response to Recent Commentaries

Inflation targeting: Is IT to blame for banking system instability?

In light of the financial crisis, the practice of inflation targeting (IT) has been blamed for authorities’ failure to respond to the increase in financial systemic risk and to the development of asset bubbles. However, utilizing a rich database containing nearly 5500 commercial banks from 70 countries (among which, 22 are IT) for the period 1998–2012, this paper argues that on average, inflati...

Blame, What is it Good For?

Blame is an vital social and cognitive mechanism that humans utilize in their interactions with other agents. In this paper, we discuss how blame-reasoning mechanisms are needed to enable future social robots to: (1) appropriately adapt behavior in the context of repeated and/or long-term interactions and relationships with other social agents; (2) avoid behaviors that are perceived to be rude ...

Why is A Few Sometimes A Lot?

It is not surprising to find that the quantity picked out by terms like a few and a lot is context dependent. We can easily accept that a few books might be 10 books, yet a lot of smartphones might only be 4 smartphones. The current paper posits that there are two hypotheses that can explain can explain this context dependency: the Definite Number Hypothesis (DNH), and the Gradable Quantifier H...

Analyzing the Costs of Collective Actions for Political, Administrative, and Economic Agents to Facilitate Investment

The processes of collective action of individuals within the government organization and the formation and modification of these processes in the private sector have fundamental differences with collective action. A collective action, either in the form of an activity or in the form of a reform of an entity, both has transaction costs for agents within the process. So, a collective action withi...