We use new central stellar velocity dispersions and nuclear X-ray and Hα luminosities for the Palomar survey of nearby galaxies to investigate the distribution of nuclear bolometric luminosities and Eddington ratios for their central black holes (BHs). This information helps to constrain the nature of their accretion flows and the physical drivers that control the spectral diversity of nearby a...

Aim To estimate the prevalence of hazardous drinking and its socio-economic distribution among Russian men. Design Participants were an age-stratified, population-based random sample of men aged 25–54 years living in Izhevsk, a city in the Urals, Russia. Interviewers administered questionnaires to cohabiting proxy respondents about behavioural indicators of hazardous drinking derived from frequ...

The relative merits of cooperation and self-interest in an ensemble of strategic interactions can be investigated by using finite random games. In finite random games, finitely many players have finite numbers of actions and independently and identically distributed (iid) random payoffs with continuous distribution functions. In each realization, players are shown the values of all payoffs and ...

This paper presents a model in which goods market distortions lead firms to socially inefficient modes of internal organization. The model seeks to capture the aversion documented by Eccles and White (1988) of middle management aversion to inter-profit center transactions. I consider situations where reputational forces are able to support equilibria in which goods are of high quality. These fo...

Welfare economics typically holds that market outcomes are Pareto efficient only if markets are competitive and average costs are constant or increasing. Otherwise, to attain market efficiency requires some regulatory implementation of a rule to equate price to marginal cost, though the ability of such a pricing rule to accomplish this is tempered by second-best considerations. In contrast to t...

We consider small committees which have to elect one of three alternatives using the simple plurality rule. Committee members have common, state-dependent preferences and receive imprecise private signals about the state of nature prior to the election. We are interested in whether the committee decision is efficient, that is whether the probability with which the committee elects the correct a...

The low-luminosity black hole Sgr A* provides a testbed for models of Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows (RIAFs). Recent sub-millimeter linear polarization measurements of Sgr A* have provided evidence that the electrons in the accretion flow are relativistic over a large range of radii. Here, we show that these high temperatures result in elliptical plasma normal modes. Thus, polarized mi...

Previous literature shows that contracting frictions may preclude valuable cooperation between innovators and commercializers in Markets for Technology. This literature, however, does not address the question of how large the implied inefficiency is. Focusing on licensing-based cooperation in the pharmaceutical industry and the enactment of the Medicare Part D program (which implied a large dow...

The municipal governments, through their Environmental Secretariats, seek to invest in afforestation public policies, educational campaigns and seedling distribution. However, the actions are inefficient, as studies on based inventories of species planted places, few understand population subject afforestation. It is believed that work environmental education paramount importance. This study ai...