In the engineering design process, it is important to know the engineering trade-offs achievable under various design preferences and strategies. In this paper, a family of engineering design trade-offs are evolved from an automatic design synthesis methodology based on evolutionary computation. The complete Pareto optima frontier can be evolved by a consideration of fitness function that aggre...

OBJECTIVES Prostate cancer screening using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) remains controversial. In deciding about screening, men must weigh the benefits and harms: little is known about benefit: harm trade-offs men are willing to accept. The objective of this study was to assess men's preferences for PSA screening, and the trade-offs between benefits and harms men are willing to accept when d...

Does globalization affect the demand-side of politics, and if so, how? This paper builds on new developments in trade theory to argue that globalization matters, but that its effects on individuals’ perceptions of labor market risk and policy preferences are more heterogenous than previous research has acknowledged. Globalization exposure increases risk perceptions and demands for social protec...

Ex-post opportunistic behavior, commonly present in bilateral trade relationships, is a key element of the transaction cost economics. Investment in outside options is a prime example of such opportunism and often leads to inefficiency, for example by exerting effort to search for alternative business partners even if it does not add trade value. We experimentally investigate a bilateral trade ...

Developing countries have increasingly opened their economies to trade. Research about trade policy in developed countries focuses on a bottom-up process by identifying economic preferences of domestic groups. We know less about developing countries. We analyze how economic and political variables influenced Costa Rican voters in a referendum on CAFTA-DR, an international trade agreement. We fi...

Developing countries have increasingly opened their economies to trade. Research about trade policy in developed countries focuses on a bottom-up process by identifying economic preferences of domestic groups. We know less about developing countries. We analyze how economic and political variables influenced Costa Rican voters in a referendum on CAFTA, an international trade agreement. We find ...

BACKGROUND Symptoms are important drivers for the use of primary care services. Strategies aimed at shifting the focus away from the GP have broadened the range of primary healthcare available. AIM To explore preferences for managing symptoms and investigate trade-offs that the public are willing to make when deciding between different primary care services. DESIGN AND SETTING UK-wide posta...

\No Trade" Theorems claim that the mere arrival of new information can not induce trade between rational agents, even in the presence of asymmetric information. We analyze an economy in which the information agents receive is without noise. As long as preferences abide by the Sure Thing Principle, the no-trade result holds. However, under more general preferences, which do not satisfy the Sure ...