Evaluating Sire Selection Practices Using Lifetime Net Income Functions

Evaluating resource selection functions

A resource selection function (RSF) is any model that yields values proportional to the probability of use of a resource unit. RSF models often are fitted using generalized linear models (GLMs) although a variety of statistical models might be used. Information criteria such as the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) or Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) are tools that can be useful for selectin...

Invited review: selection on net merit to improve lifetime profit.

Genetic selection has made dairy cows more profit-able producers of milk. Genetic evaluations began with 2 traits measured on a few cows but now include many traits measured on millions of cows. Selection indexes from USDA included yield traits beginning in 1971, productive life and somatic cell score beginning in 1994, conformation traits in 2000, and cow fertility and calving ease in 2003. Th...

The Importance of Sire Selection

Training and Lifetime Income∗

This paper challenges the notion that on-the-job training investments are quantitatively important for workers’ welfare and argues that on-the-job training may not increase lifetime income by more than one percent. In particular, I argue that it is very difficult to reconcile the slowdown in wage growth late in a worker’s career with optimizing behavior unless the technology for learning on the...

Framing Lifetime Income

We provide evidence that individuals optimize imperfectly when making annuity decisions, and this result is not driven by loss aversion. Life annuities are more attractive when presented in a consumption frame than in an investment frame. Highlighting the purchase price in the consumption frame does not alter this result. The level of habitual spending has little interaction with preferences fo...