This paper presents moments and cross-moments of utility functions and measures of utility dependence. We start with an interpretation of the nth moment of a utility function, and describe methods for its assessment in practice and consistency checks that need to be satisfied for any assessed moments. We then show how moments of a utility function (i) provide a new method to determine the param...

The application and estimation of expected utility based decision models would benefit from having additional simple and flexible functional forms to represent risk preferences. The literature so far has provided these functional forms for the utility function itself. This work shows that functional forms for the marginal utility function are as useful, are easier to provide, and can represent ...

A pseudopotential generation method is presented which significantly improves transferability. The method exploits flexibility contained in the separable Kleinman-Bylander form of the nonlocal pseudopotential @Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 1425 ~1982!#. By adjusting the functional form of the local potential, we are able to improve the agreement with all-electron calculations. Results are presented for ...

To introduce the republication of “Definitional Interpreters for Higher-Order Programming Languages”, the author recounts the circumstances of its creation, clarifies several obscurities, corrects a few mistakes, and briefly summarizes some more recent developments.

This quantity was introduced in 1969 by Cheeger [1] to bound from below the spectral gap of the Laplacian on compact Riemannian manifolds, and nowadays (1) is often called an isoperimetric inequality of the Cheeger type. The relationship between more general isoperimetric and certain Sobolev type inequalities was earlier considered by Maz’ya [2] (see for history, for example, [3, 4]). What was ...

This note provides a simple exposition of what IV can and cannot estimate in a model with a binary treatment variable and heterogeneous treatment effects. It shows how linear IV is a misspecification of functional form and the reason why linear IV estimates for this model will always depend on the instrument used is because of this misspecification. It shows that if one can estimate the correct...

This paper estimates a dynamic model of the world oil market and tests whether OPEC countries colluded and whether non-OPEC countries behaved oligopolistically over the period 1970-2004. The model generates estimates of the shadow price of the resource with minimal functional form assumptions. Results support oligopolistic behavior among non-OPEC producers and collusion among OPEC producers exc...

In this issue, Karl Crary and Robert Harper respond to the critique of higher-order abstract syntax appearing in Logic Column 14, “Nominal Logic and Abstract Syntax” (SIGACT News 36(4), December 2005). I am always looking for contributions. If you have any suggestion concerning the content of the Logic Column, or if you would like to contribute by writing a column yourself, feel free to get in ...

An overview of the background of Taylor series methods and the utilization of the differential algebraic structure is given, and various associated techniques are reviewed. The conventional Taylor methods are extended to allow for a rigorous treatment of bounds for the remainder of the expansion in a similarly universal way. Utilizing differential algebraic and functional analytic arguments on ...

This paper proposes a new approach for analyzing the relationship between macroeconomic factors and the income distribution. The conventional method of analysis is regression of summary inequality indices on variables such as the unemployment and inflation rates. Building on the lessons from recent advances in time-series econometrics, we suggest instead that one should first fit a parametric f...