Eradicating hunger and malnutrition is a key development goal of the 21st century. We address the problem of optimally identifying seed varieties to reliably increase crop yield within a risk-sensitive decision making framework. Specifically, we introduce a novel hierarchical machine learning mechanism for predicting crop yield (the yield of different seed varieties of the same crop). We integr...

Estimates of the carbon monoxide yield of their cigarettes have been obtained for 4910 smokers (68% of all smokers) in the Whitehall study of men aged 40 to 64. In the 10 years after examination 635 men died. When men smoking cigarettes with high carbon monoxide yield were compared with those smoking cigarettes with a low yield, and after adjusting for age, employment grade, amount smoked, and ...

The literature on credit risk consists of different approaches in modeling the behavior of defaultable bonds. The structural approach is based on the evolution of the firm value to determine default and recovery. In contrast, the more recently developed intensity-based models specify the default time exogenously. In this approach the defaultable yield curve results from the risk-free yield curv...

In this paper, using China’s risk-free and corporate zero yields together with aggregate credit risk measures and various control variables from 2006 to 2013, we document a puzzle of counter-credit-risk corporate yield spreads. We interpret this puzzle as a symptom of the immaturity of China’s credit bond market, which reveals a distorted pricing mechanism latent in the fundamental of this mark...