The internet contains billions of documents. We study if there is useful information in the frequency with which different topics are written about. Based on the premise that the occurrence of an event increases its textual frequency, we assess whether internet document-frequency can capture cross-sectional variation in the occurrence-frequency of social phenomena. We characterize the condition...

Time-to-Degree and the Business Cycle When students themselves enjoy large degrees of freedom in determining the duration of their studies, it results in a fairly large degree of interindividual variance in terms of time-todegree. This paper investigates individual time-to-degree in a model where students determine the optimum time-to-degree whilst weighing up the cost against the consumption b...

Regional Income Stratification in Unified Germany Using a Gini Decomposition Approach This paper delivers new insights into the development of income inequality and regional stratification in Germany after unification using a new method for detecting social stratification by a decomposition of the GINI index which yields the obligatory betweenand within-group components as well as an “overlappi...

We ask whether the widely used direction of decision and direction of vote variables in the United States Supreme Court Judicial Database (USSCJD) are contaminated by confirmation bias, or have been affected by expectations about the likely effects of judicial preferences on case outcomes. Using a sample of generally comparable cases, we find evidence that the assignment of issue codes to these...

The costs of living with wildlife are assessed using Namibian subsistence farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for deterrents to attacks on crops and livestock as a measure of damage costs. A utility-theoretic approach jointly estimates household WTP for deterrent programs in two “currencies,” maize and cash. This has a double payoff. Use of a noncash staple increases respondent comprehension and ...

We design and conduct an economic experiment to investigate the learning process of the agents under compound risk and under ambiguity. We gather data for subjects choosing between lotteries involving risky and ambiguous urns. Decisions are made in conjunction with a sequence of random draws with replacement, allowing us to estimate the beliefs of the agents at different moments in time. For ea...

A challenge to the simulation of Fischer–Tropsch reaction system is lack reliable kinetic models which correctly account for deviations from ideal polymerisation behaviour. The current trend in literature attribute these effects only. This ignores that reactions synthesis contain many aspects an equilibrium-controlled process. arises since rate chain growth much faster than monomer formation CO...