GIFTS IN CONTEMPLATION OF DEATH

Costly Contemplation∗

We study preferences over opportunity sets. Such preferences are monotone if every opportunity set is at least as good as its subsets. We prove a representation theorem for monotone preferences. The representation suggests that the decision maker optimally contemplates his mood before making his ultimate choice from his opportunity set. We show that our model reduces to that of Kreps (1979) whe...

Neurosurgery – Contemplation of the Future

When I was a medical student 42 years ago my neurological textbooks were replete with diagrams of the motor, sensory, visual, and speech areas of the cerebral cortex. It occurred to me then that perhaps the viscera might also have cortical representation and therefore why not try to find out if this were so? Sad to say I was dissuaded from investigative attempts on the grounds that time in medi...

War Gifts

"We beg to call special attention to tlie following communique :? "The Indian Council of the St, John's Ambulance Association have noticed in th<i press that the proceeds of various entertainments, race meetings, etc., have been given to what is called " The Red Cross SocietyThe Council desire to point out that the Indian Branch of the St. John's Ambulance Association is the only Ambulance Soci...

Nuptial gifts

Figure 1. Nuptial gifts of insects. An array of nuptial gifts provided by male insects. Top left: during mating, a female dance fly (Diptera: Empididae) feeds upon a dead insect provided by her mate (Photo: Rob Knell). Top right: a male scorpionfly (Mecoptera: Panorpodidae) secretes a white salivary mass that will be consumed by a female during mating (Photo: Arp Kruithof). Bottom left: after m...

The Meaning of Gifts