Principal Agent Theory (PAT) seeks to identify the incentives and sanctions that a consumer should apply when entering into a contract with a provider in order to maximise their own utility. However, identifying suitable contracts — maximising utility while minimising regret — is difficult, particularly when little information is available about provider competencies. In this paper we show that...

This paper employs a cointegrated vector autoregressive model to assess the growth effect of aid in Uganda over the period 1972-2008. Results show that aid in Uganda has had both direct and indirect beneficial association with growth; that it is the productivity and not the stead state level of investment that contributes to achieving target growth rates; and that consumption spending is more b...

This study investigates what is an appropriate level of investment management fees. We extend existing results and provide a several formula for the case of power utility and normal returns. Using the CRRA utility function with the range of the coe¢cient of the CRRA suggested by Mehra and Prescott (1985), we ...nd that the value of information added by linear factor models of Fama and French (1...

LARRY W. KRAISS,1,2,3 ANDREW S. WEYRICH,2,4 NEAL M. ALTO,1 DAN A. DIXON,2 TINA M. ENNIS,1,2 VIJAYANAND MODUR,5 THOMAS M. MCINTYRE,2,4,5 STEPHEN M. PRESCOTT,2,4,6 AND GUY A. ZIMMERMAN2,4 1Division of Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery; 2Program in Human Molecular Biology and Genetics, Eccles Institute of Human Genetics; 3Surgical Service, Salt Lake Veterans Affairs Medical Center; and Depar...

In this paper, we investigate eligibility of trend extraction through the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and performance improvement of applying the ensemble EMD (EEMD) instead of the EMD for trend extraction from seasonal time series. The proposed method is an approach that can be applied on any time series with any time scales fluctuations. In order to evaluate our algorithm, experimental...

This paper studies how the Hodrick-Prescott filter should be adjusted when changing the frequency of observations. It complements the results of Baxter and King (1999) with an analytical analysis, demonstrating that the filter parameter should be adjusted by multiplying it with the fourth power of the observation frequency ratios. This yields an HP parameter value of 6.25 for annual data given ...

S. E. Gossan, P. Sutton, A. Stuver, M. Zanolin, K. Gill, and C. D. Ott LIGO—California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA TAPIR, MC 350-17, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, 3700 Willow Creek Road, Prescott, Arizona 86301, USA Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF24 3AA, United Kingdom LIGO Livingston Observ...

In its relatively brief history, positive psychology has used a variety of research method­ ologies to better understand the nature of happiness and the "good life." In the face of scant empirical knowledge of positive emotions (cf. Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999), tightly controlled randomized laboratory studies have begun to establish the causes, cor­ relates, consequences, and basic mecha...