What Has Collective Wisdom to Do with Wisdom?
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The Conventional Wisdom of Globalisation Is, by Now, Well-Known
University of Warwick institutional repository This paper is made available online in accordance with publisher policies. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item and our policy information available from the repository home page for further information. To see the final version of this paper please visit the publisher’s website. Access to the published version may require a subscription. Author(s): Watson, Matthew Article Title: International Capital Mobility in an Era of Globalisation: Adding a Political Dimension to the 'Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle' Year of publication: 2002 Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00139 Publisher statement: The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com “International Capital Mobility in an Era of Globalisation: Adding a Political Dimension to the ‘Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle’” Matthew Watson1 Published in Politics, 21 (2), 2001, 82-93. Description Matthew Watson reviews the literature on international capital mobility to conclude that ideas about global capital market integration have an independent causal impact on political outcomes which extends beyond that which can be attributed to the extent of their actual integration. Abstract The debate about the scope of feasible policy-making in an era of globalisation continues to be set within the context of an assumption that national capital markets are now perfectly integrated at the international level. However, the empirical evidence on international capital -
De Re and De Dicto: Against the Conventional Wisdom1
Philosophical Perspectives, 16, Language and Mind, 2002 DE RE AND DE DICTO: AGAINST THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM1 Kenneth A. Taylor Stanford University 1. Preliminaries Conventional wisdom has it that there is a class of attitude ascriptions such that in making an ascription of that sort, the ascriber undertakes a com- mitment to specify the contents of the ascribee’s head in what might be called a notionally sensitive, ascribee-centered way. In making such an ascription, the ascriber is supposed to undertake a commitment to specify the modes of presentation, concepts or notions under which the ascribee cognizes the ob- jects (and properties) that her beliefs are about. Consequently, it is widely sup- posed that an ascription of the relevant sort will be true just in case it specifies either directly or indirectly both what the ascribee believes and how she be- lieves it. The class of “notionally sensitive” ascriptions has been variously char- acterized. Quine (1956) calls the class I have in mind the class of notional ascriptions and distinguishes it from the class of relational ascriptions. Others call the relevant class the class of de dicto ascriptions and distinguish it from the class of de re ascriptions. More recently, it has been called the class of notionally loaded ascriptions (Crimmins 1992, 1995). So understood, the class can be contrasted with the class of notionally neutral ascriptions. Just as the class of notional/de dicto/notionally loaded ascriptions is supposed to put at semantic issue the ascribee’s notions/conceptions/modes of presentation, so ascriptions in the relational/de re/notionally neutral class are supposed not to do so. -
Individual and Collective Information Acquisition: an Experimental Study
Individual and Collective Information Acquisition: An Experimental Study∗ P¨ellumb Reshidi† Alessandro Lizzeri‡ Leeat Yariv§ Jimmy Chan¶ Wing Suen‖ September 2020 Abstract Many committees|juries, political task forces, etc.|spend time gathering costly information before reaching a decision. We report results from lab experiments focused on such information- collection processes. We consider decisions governed by individuals and groups and compare how voting rules affect outcomes. We also contrast static information collection, as in classical hypothesis testing, with dynamic collection, as in sequential hypothesis testing. Generally, out- comes approximate the theoretical benchmark and sequential information collection is welfare enhancing relative to static collection. Nonetheless, several important departures emerge. Static information collection is excessive, and sequential information collection is non-stationary, pro- ducing declining decision accuracies over time. Furthermore, groups using majority rule yield especially hasty and inaccurate decisions. ∗We thank Roland Benabou, Stephen Morris, Salvo Nunnari, and Wolfgang Pesendorfer for very helpful discussions and feedback. We gratefully acknowledge the support of NSF grants SES-1629613 and SES-1949381. †Department of Economics, Princeton University [email protected] ‡Department of Economics, Princeton University [email protected] §Department of Economics, Princeton University [email protected] ¶Department of Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong [email protected] ‖Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong [email protected] 1 1 Introduction 1.1 Overview Juries, boards of directors, congressional and university committees, government agencies such as the FDA or the EPA, and many other committees spend time deliberating issues before reaching a decision or issuing a recommendation. An important component of such collective decisions is the acquisition of information. -
Some Worries About the Coherence of Left-Libertarianism Mathias Risse
John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Faculty Research Working Papers Series Can There be “Libertarianism without Inequality”? Some Worries About the Coherence of Left-Libertarianism Mathias Risse Nov 2003 RWP03-044 The views expressed in the KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or Harvard University. All works posted here are owned and copyrighted by the author(s). Papers may be downloaded for personal use only. Can There be “Libertarianism without Inequality”? Some Worries About the Coherence of Left-Libertarianism1 Mathias Risse John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University October 25, 2003 1. Left-libertarianism is not a new star on the sky of political philosophy, but it was through the recent publication of Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner’s anthologies that it became clearly visible as a contemporary movement with distinct historical roots. “Left- libertarian theories of justice,” says Vallentyne, “hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner. Unlike most versions of egalitarianism, left-libertarianism endorses full self-ownership, and thus places specific limits on what others may do to one’s person without one’s permission. Unlike right- libertarianism, it holds that natural resources may be privately appropriated only with the permission of, or with a significant payment to, the members of society. Like right- libertarianism, left-libertarianism holds that the basic rights of individuals are ownership rights. Left-libertarianism is promising because it coherently underwrites both some demands of material equality and some limits on the permissible means of promoting this equality” (Vallentyne and Steiner (2000a), p 1; emphasis added). -
Jesus: Teacher of Alternative Wisdom”
First Congregational United Church of Christ – Eugene, Oregon WHO WAS THAT GUY? A Youth/Adult Study Based on the Book “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” by Marcus J. Borg 6 “Jesus: Teacher of Alternative Wisdom” The strongest consensus among Jesus scholars today is that Jesus was a teacher of wisdom. There is virtually no disagreement on this point. Basically, wisdom is about how to live one’s life in accord with reality. Central to it is the notion of a way or a path, indeed of two ways or paths: the wise way and the foolish way. Teachers of wisdom speak of these two ways , commending the one and warning of the consequences of following the other. There are also two types of wisdom and two types of teachers. The most common type of wisdom is conventional wisdom; its teachers are conventional sages. This is the mainstream wisdom of a culture, it’s “what everybody knows,” a culture’s understandings about what is real and how to live. The second type is a subversive and alternative wisdom. This wisdom questions and undermines conventional wisdom and speaks of another way, another path. Its teachers are subversive sages. Lao-tzu spoke of following a “way” that led away from conventional perceptions and values toward living in accord with “the Tao” itself. At the center of the Buddha’s teaching is the image of a way, “the eightfold path,” leading from the world of convention and its “grasping” to enlightenment and compassion. The wisdom of the subversive sage is the wisdom of “the road less traveled.” And so it was with Jesus: his wisdom spoke of “the narrow way” which led to life, and subverted the “broad way” followed by the many, which led to destruction. -
The Spread of True and False News Online
MIT INITIATIVE ON THE DIGITAL ECONOMY RESEARCH BRIEF THE SPREAD OF TRUE AND FALSE NEWS ONLINE By Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral FALSE NEWS IS BIG NEWS. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Barely a day goes by without a new development about the veracity of social media, foreign We investigated the differential diffusion of all the meddling in U.S. elections, or questionable science. verified, true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise Adding to the confusion is speculation about what’s approximately 126,000 cascades of news stories behind such developments—is the motivation spreading on Twitter, tweeted by about 3 million deliberate and political, or is it a case of uninformed misinformation? And who is spreading the word people over 4.5 million times. online—rogue AI bots or agitated humans? We classified news as true or false using information These were among the questions we sought to from six independent fact-checking address in the largest-ever longitudinal study of organizations that exhibited 95% -98% agreement on the spread of false news online. Until now, few the classifications. large-scale empirical investigations existed on the diffusion of misinformation or its social origins. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, Studies about the spread of misinformation were and more broadly than the truth in all limited to analyses of small, ad hoc samples. categories. The effects were most pronounced for But these ad hoc studies ignore two of the most false political news than for news about important scientific questions: How do truth and falsity diffuse differently, and what factors related terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or to human judgment explain these differences? financial information. -
Conventional Wisdom – Benefits and Consequences of Annealing Understanding of Engineering Principles
EE 508 Lecture 40 Conventional Wisdom – Benefits and Consequences of Annealing Understanding of Engineering Principles by Randy Geiger Iowa State University Conventional Wisdom: Conventional wisdom is the collective understanding of fundamental engineering concepts and principles that evolves over time through interactions of practicing engineers around the world Conventional Wisdom: • Guides engineers in daily practice of the Profession • Widely use to enhance productivity • Heavily emphasized in universities around the world when educating next-generation engineers • Often viewed as a fundamental concept or principle • Validity of conventional wisdom seldom questioned Are Conventional Wisdom and Fundamental Concepts and Principles Always Aligned? Much of Society till Pythagoras 520BC 1200AD to 1600AD and later Aristotle 300BC http://greenfunkdan.blogspot.com/2008/11/csiro-warns-of-climate-change-doomsday.html http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c034.html Sometimes the differences can be rather significant ! Conventional wisdom, when not correctly representing fundamental principles, can provide conflicting perceptions or irresolvable paradoxes Are Conventional Wisdom and Fundamental Concepts always aligned in the Microelectronics Field ? Are Conventional Wisdom and Fundamental Concepts always aligned in the Microelectronics Field ? Records of • Conventional Wisdom • Fundamental Concepts Conventional Wisdom • Occasional Oversight of Error • Key information embedded in 13 tremendous volume of materials (noise) Do Conventional Wisdom -
Society Persuasion In
PERSUASION IN SOCIETY HERBERT W. SIMONS with JOANNE MORREALE and BRUCE GRONBECK Table of Contents List of Artwork in Persuasion in Society xiv About the Author xvii Acknowledgments xix Preface xx Part 1: Understanding Persuasion 1. The Study of Persuasion 3 Defining Persuasion 5 Why Is Persuasion Important? 10 Studying Persuasion 14 The Behavioral Approach: Social-Scientific Research on the Communication-Persuasion Matrix 15 The Critical Studies Approach: Case Studies and “Genre-alizations” 17 Summary 20 Questions and Projects for Further Study 21 2. The Psychology of Persuasion: Basic Principles 25 Beliefs and Values as Building Blocks of Attitudes 27 Persuasion by Degrees: Adapting to Different Audiences 29 Schemas: Attitudes as Knowledge Structures 32 From Attitudes to Actions: The Role of Subjective Norms 34 Elaboration Likelihood Model: Two Routes to Persuasion 34 Persuasion as a Learning Process 36 Persuasion as Information Processing 37 Persuasion and Incentives 38 Persuasion by Association 39 Persuasion as Psychological Unbalancing and Rebalancing 40 Summary 41 Questions and Projects for Further Study 42 3. Persuasion Broadly Considered 47 Two Levels of Communication: Content and Relational 49 Impression Management 51 Deception About Persuasive Intent 51 Deceptive Deception 52 Expression Games 54 Persuasion in the Guise of Objectivity 55 Accounting Statements and Cost-Benefit Analyses 55 News Reporting 56 Scientific Reporting 57 History Textbooks 58 Reported Discoveries of Social Problems 59 How Multiple Messages Shape Ideologies 59 The Making of McWorld 63 Summary 66 Questions and Projects for Further Study 68 Part 2: The Coactive Approach 4. Coactive Persuasion 73 Using Receiver-Oriented Approaches 74 Being Situation Sensitive 76 Combining Similarity and Credibility 79 Building on Acceptable Premises 82 Appearing Reasonable and Providing Psychological Income 85 Using Communication Resources 86 Summary 88 Questions and Projects for Further Study 89 5. -
Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds*
Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds* Zhi Da,y and Xing Huangz This Draft: September 2016 Abstract We examine the negative information externality associated with herding on a crowd-based earnings forecast platform (Estimize.com). By tracking user viewing activities, we monitor the amount of information a user views before she makes an earnings forecast. We find that the more public information a user views, the less weight she will put on her private information. While this improves the accuracy of each individual forecast, it reduces the accuracy of the consensus forecast, since useful private information is prevented from entering the consensus. Predictable errors made by “influential users" early on persist in the consensus forecast and result in return predictability at earnings announcements. To address endogeneity concerns related to information acquisition choices, we collaborate with Estimize.com to run experiments where we restrict the information set for randomly selected stocks and users. The experiments confirm that \independent" forecasts lead to a more accurate consensus and convince Estimize.com to switch to a \blind" platform from November 2015. Overall, our findings suggest that the wisdom of crowds can be better harnessed by encouraging independent voices from the participants. *We thank Renee Adams, Kenneth Ahern, Qi Chen, Erik Eyster (discussant), Cary Frydman, Stefano DellaVigna, Umit Gurun, David Hirshleifer, Harrison Hong, Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, Russell James (discussant), Petri Jylha (discussant), Peter Kelly, Tse-Chun -
The Wisdom of Crowds (00248391)
The Wisdom of Crowds “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too estimate of the fair price. In other words, it is very crowded.” - Yogi Berra difficult for any single investor, even an expert, to be wiser than the wisdom of the crowd. As the summer draws to a close, we Floridians are in transition. We will soon stop complaining about the This phenomenon may seem odd or difficult to heat and start complaining about the crowds. While it believe at first, but consider this: For every buyer of a may be impossible to be sanguine about the stock, there must be a seller. So, by definition, half of oppressive summer heat, we should keep in mind that the market participants think the stock is a good buy the fall and winter crowds actually provide us with and half think it should be sold. With billions of some useful benefits. The crowds of tourists shares being bought and sold each day, the diverse contribute a large share of revenue to the Florida opinions of thousands of investors are fairly reflected economy, and they help to pay for a significant in the resulting stock price (this is what your high portion of our state infrastructure. It might be school chemistry teacher would cite as an example of difficult to keep this in mind when your favorite "equilibrium”). This equilibrium price reflects all of restaurant is booked and the highway looks like a the information available to the crowd, so, in order to parking lot, but the crowds do take a financial burden beat the market, it is not enough to simply outguess off of the locals. -
Challenging Conventional Wisdom 2 3
1 Irene Padavic, Robin J. Ely & Erin Reid The Work -Family Narrative as a Social Defense Research Symposium GENDER & WORK CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL WISDOM 2 3 WORK /FAMILY GENDER WORK & ©2013 President & Fellows of Harvard College 4 WORK/FAMILY 5 WORK/FAMILY THE WORK-FAMILY NARRATIVE and provided feedback. Upon observing these disconnects, we proceeded deductively by taking a psychodynamic systems-perspective on our data to further develop the analysis. Our study had AS A SOCIAL DEFENSE been instigated at the request of firm leaders, who sought professional advice about how to stem women’s high rates of turnover in the associate ranks and increase their promotion rates to part- ner. We agreed to consult to the firm on these issues, and the firm gave us permission to collect data for research purposes. Although virtually all participants pointed to work-family conflict as the reason women quit or failed to make partner, our analysis showed women felt no greater distress than men over long work hours and work-family conflict. Both sexes were equally (and Irene Padavic Florida State University highly) dissatisfied on these dimensions, revealing a disconnect between the facts and the firm’s Harvard Business School Robin J. Ely problem-definition. The second disconnect was the fact that a key “presenting problem,” to Erin Reid Boston University use psychological language, was the differential turnover rate, when in fact, there was no differ- ence: company records indicate that women and men had quit at the same rate for at least the preceding three years. The third and final disconnect was firm leaders’ negative reaction to the A widely-accepted explanation for women’s stalled advancement into senior professional posi- analyses and proposed interventions. -
COLLECTIVE ACTION FEDERALISM: a GENERAL THEORY of ARTICLE I, SECTION 8 Robert D
COLLECTIVE ACTION FEDERALISM: A GENERAL THEORY OF ARTICLE I, SECTION 8 Robert D. Cooter* & Neil S. Siegel** The Framers of the United States Constitution wrote Article I, Section 8 in order to address some daunting collective action problemsfacing the young na- tion. They especially wanted to protect the states from military warfare by fo- reigners andfrom commercial warfare against one another. The states acted in- dividually when they needed to act collectively, and Congress lacked power under the Articles of Confederation to address these problems. Section 8 thus au- thorized Congress to promote the "general Welfare" of the United States by tack- ling many collective actionproblems that the states could not solve on their own. Subsequent interpretationsof Section 8, both outside and inside the courts, often have focused on the presence or absence of collective action problems in- volving multiple states-but not always. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States, in trying to distinguish the "truly national" from the "truly local" in the context of the Commerce Clause, United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, * Herman Selvin Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley. ** Professor of Law and Political Science, Duke University School of Law. I dedicate this Article to the loving memory of my mother, Sharon Ruth Siegel, for giving me life-and a whole lot more. For illuminating comments, we thank Jack Balkin, Sara Beale, Stuart Benjamin, Joseph Blocher, Curtis Bradley, Geoffrey Brennan, Samuel Buell, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jesse Cho- per, Eric Freedman, Philip Frickey, Barry Friedman, Jamal Greene, Daniel Greenwood, Grant Hayden, Laurence Helfer, Don Herzog, Roderick Hills, Donald Horowitz, John Inazu, Margaret Lemos, Anne Joseph O'Connell, Sanford Kadish, Richard Lazarus, Margaret Le- mos, Paul Mishkin, Julian Mortenson, Michael Munger, Richard Pildes, Eric Posner, Robert Post, H.