Presentations - PhD EM - 31st cycle

15 dicembre 2016
15 December 2016
Contatti: 
Doctoral School of Social Sciences
via Verdi 26, 38122 - Trento
Tel. 
+39 0461 283756 - 2290
Fax 
+39 0461 282335

Skype: school.socialsciences

9 AM, Laboratory 4, Doctoral School of Social Sciences, via Verdi 26

  • DORIGONI Alessia: The role of cognitive reflection and numeracy on the quality of commercial problem solving

Abstract

Individual differences in cognitive abilities and skills have an important role in judgment and decision making. In particular we investigate the role of Cognitive Refection and Numeracy in a specific frame of consumer decisions in order to understand if and how these skills affect the accuracy of the decision making process. We used the eye-tracking to analyze the information search process considering the individual differences in cognitive abilities. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly we want to shed light on the confounding problem between Cognitive Reflection and Numeracy analyzing the correlation between different versions of Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and the Numeracy in order to select the CRT with the lowest correlation with the Numeracy. Secondly, we want to assess and compare the predictive power of these two tests in two consumer problem solving settings. This second step will allow us to understand the predictive power of two measures that are not correlated and analyze how they affect the quality of the consumers decision-making process. The current experiment not only examines the processes that mediate individual differences in economics decision making but also goes deeper into these two constructs, trying to uncover their underlying psychological structures.
Keywords: cognitive abilities, problem solving, cognitive reflection, numeracy, eye movements, decision-making in economics.

  • CATERINI Giacomo: Big Data and Macroeconomics

Abstract

In the last decade the interest on Big Data and the fields in which they are jointly applied with machine learning and econometric techniques are increasing. The challenge for a researcher dealing with Big Data is not limited to improving the performances of standard models already providing satisfactory predictions. Rather, the goal is theoretically modeling the fields and the situations in which gains obtained exploiting such gigantic amount of information in predicting the behavior of economic agents and the evolution of main economic indicators are not negligible. Gathering big amounts of information from the internet, real time data reflecting agents plans and expectations are obtained and econometric tools can be applied for nowcasting.
Keywords: Big Data, Machine Learning, Nowcasting

 

  • KLASER Klaudjio: Three Economic Extensions of the Rawlsian Social Contract Theory with a Focus on the Compliance Issue: European Union, Intergenerational Justice and Tax Evasion

Abstract

Is an agreement, reached in an anonymity condition, enough to generate fair and stable social and economic institutions? The answer to this research question will be provided in three different contexts, and all of them will be substantially based on the moral theory of John Rawls, conceived in his A Theory of Justice. The idea is to make use of the tool of the veil of ignorance, such that “no one is able to design principles to favor his particular condition”, to design and to inquire the fairness and the stability of distributive institutions. Combining the tool of the veil of ignorance with some specific economic and experimental literature, the research focuses on three specific spheres: the European Union's institutions and the principles at the basis of the international justice; the principles of the intergenerational justice within an experimental perspective; the tax compliance behavior in a laboratory context. 

  • NGUYEN Linh Chi: Evolution of Behavior in the Repeated Nash Demand Game.

Abstract

Bargaining is an important problem in economics literature. We simulate a population of agents adopting different strategies of the repeated Nash Demand Game and let it evolve. The result suggests that, when the game is a one-shot bargain, the 50-50 division is very stable. However, when the game is repeated (and/or the discount factor is sufficiently high), the 50-50 share is not that stable any more. Throughout the simulation, inefficient periods appear consistently. Upon closer inspection, these inefficient periods are due to aggressive strategies in the population. With this result, we would like to offer a way on a priori ground to explain why there is not always fairness in dividing a pie, and different societies may have different ways of sharing it.

Keywords Nash Demand Game, agent based simulation, evolutionary game theory.

  • NUZZO Maria Francesca: High Frequency Trading: Identify to Regulate.

Abstract  

Why a research on HFTs? First, because the current literature haven't found an exhaustive definition and, consequently, a straight identification method for this phenomenon. Secondly, because supervisory authorities are currently struggling in order to frame a proper regulatory environment. I have organized the reminder of this paper as follows: The next section displays the most common identification techniques and their main drawbacks. It will present European and Italian guidelines as well. Section 2  focuses on the literature review on HFT and Section 3 will sketch methodological and technological tools to be employed (i.g. Machine Learning). This paper also includes an appendix  centered on the most common databases involved in the literature.

  • VU Thi Thanh Tam: The wolf in sheep's clothing - An experimental analysis on signaling social preferences

Abstract

Social preferences so far have been considered as anomalies in the traditional economic paradigm, which are explained by relaxing the self-interest assumption of the standard theory. In this study, we would conduct a two-stage experiment in which subjects' social preferences are elicited with a simple distribution game and then observed by their opponents - Dictators - in Dictator Game. By doing so, we would assess social preferences in a new domain where they serve as signaling device in economic decision making: people strategically employ a certain type of social preferences.
Keywords: Social preferences, signaling, social preference test, dictator game