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Abstract Facing to the upcoming of knowledge and economic age, the intellectual property of manpower resource is the key factor for government to upgrade the competitive capability. If the governmental employees desired to be a worker of knowledge, the department in government must provide the opportunity to let governmental employees learn. And they must have equipped themselves with ability and intention for learning the new knowledge so as to expand their intellectual property and to be an authentic worker for knowledge. Starting from July 1, 2001, the lifelong learning passport of governmental employees was officially implemented. This is the first time to promote this activity for governmental employees for lifelong learning. In addition to investigate the satisfaction of governmental employees on lifelong learning, this study also researches on personal statistical variance, individual attitude, organization factor, individual behavior and intention, and influence on satisfaction with lifelong learning passport for the governmental employees. This study adopts questionnaire method, and because it is limited by time and labor, only governmental employees served in Taichung City Government are interviewed. There are total 1173 copies of questionnaire issued, and 966 copies are collected. Among them, 916 copies are effective, and 51 copies are ineffective. The recovery rate is 82.35%, and effective recovery is 78.09%. Through SPSS software and statistical analysis with LISREL, the results of this study are concluded as follows: 1. Variance of statistical for individual attitude under analysis, there is a significant difference on lifelong learning passport for governmental employees at different ages. And the rest assumptions are unacceptable. 2. In the structure of behavior intention affected to lifelong learning passport of governmental employees, ¡§Recognition¡¨, ¡§Preference¡¨, ¡§Colleague Relationship¡¨ have reached a significant standard for behavior and have a positive relation. Moreover, ¡§Organization Supporting¡¨ and ¡§Senior Officer¡¦s Attitude¡¨ have no significant relation with behavior intention. 3. In the structure of satisfaction on lifelong learning for governmental employees, ¡§Behavior Intention¡¨ ¡§Organization Supporting¡¨ ¡§Senior Officer¡¦s Attitude¡¨ and ¡§Colleague Relationship¡¨ have a significant standard for satisfaction and have a positive relation.

Physical security systems are intended to prevent or mitigate potentially catastrophic loss of property or life. Decisions regarding the selection of one system or configuration of resources over another may be viewed as design decisions within a risk theoretic setting. The problem of revealing a clear preference among design alternatives, using only a partial or inexact delineation of event probabilities, is examined. In this dissertation, an analytical framework for the assessment of the risk associated with a physical security system is presented. Linear programming is used to determine bounds on the expected utility of an alternative, and conditions for the separation of preferences among alternatives are shown. If distinguishable preferences do not exist, techniques to determine what information may help to separate preferences are presented. The linear programming approach leads to identification of vulnerabilities in a security system through an examination of the solution to the dual problem. Security of a hypothetical military forward operating base is considered as an illustrative example. For two alternative security schemes, the uncertainty inherent in the scenario is represented using probability assessments consisting of bounds on event probabilities and exact probability assignments. Application of the framework reveals no separation of preferences between the alternatives. Examination of the primal and dual solutions to the linear programming problems, however, reveals insights into information which, if obtained, could lead to a separation of preferences as well as information on vulnerabilities in one of the alternative security postures.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第21523号 / 経博第591号 / 新制||経||288(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 梶井 厚志, 教授 原 千秋, 教授 若井 克俊 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Should cryptocurrencies populate modern portfolios, and to what degree? How can von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theory determine which portfolio is best? For this thesis, we take six cryptocurrencies and six stocks to create optimal portfolios from each and a combination of both. Then we compare the expected utility from each portfolio, with and without short selling, to a benchmark. As concluded from our data, cryptocurrencies should be a part of a modern portfolio to increase the Sharpe ratio and expected utility even if they do not take a majority proportion.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which groups of individuals are less likely to follow the authorities’ recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. The thesis aims to explain the decision-making of these individuals during a pandemic based on the theory of Expected Utility. A linear probability model is estimated in addition to a logistic regression. The study finds that the estimated effect of gender and age are significantly different from zero when considering socioeconomic control variables. The results suggest that older individuals’ expected utility is higher when following the recommendations. For men as well as younger individuals, the theory needs an extended analysis including factors from a behavioural economics point of view. This paper is an addition to an increasing number of studies conducted on the COVID-19 pandemic. / Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka individer som är mindre sannolika att följa de allmänna råd och rekommendationer som myndigheter uppmanar till under COVID-19 pandemin i Sverige samt att konkretisera potentiella bakgrunder till varför vissa individer väljer att inte följa de utifrån teorin om förväntad nytta. Tidigare studier har visat att män och yngre individer är mindre benägna att följa restriktioner under andra pandemier. Mot den bakgrunden formulerades uppsatsens hypoteser att män och yngre individer är mer sannolika att inte följa rekommendationer under pandemin i Sverige. En linjär sannolikhetsmodell och en logistisk regression estimerades, där ålder och kön var determinanter mot en binär utfallsvariabel definierad som 0 = följer rekommendationer och 1 = följer inte rekommendationer. Resultatet visade att kön och ålder uppvisade en effekt signifikant skild från noll även efter socioekonomiska kontroller. Utifrån förklaringsmodellen tyder resultatet på att äldre individer har en hög förväntad nytta av att följa rekommendationer. För män och yngre individer behöver teorin hämta stöd från beteendeekonomin. En fördjupande analys av individers riskpreferenser rekommenderas i framtiden för att ge tydliga rekommendationer till olika grupper i samhället.

I analyzed the effects of Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) and Revenue Protection crop insurance (RP) on the RP coverage level by certainty equivalents and certainty equivalent returns. ARC is a commodity program that falls under Title I of the 2014 farm bill and triggers a payment for a participating producer once his actual revenue falls below a band of 76-86 percent of a calculated expected revenue. RP is a revenue-based crop insurance program that allows for a producer to sign up for one of eight different coverage levels ranging from 50-85 percent in 5 percent increments. This leads to the idea that in order to maximize his utility, a fully-informed, expected-utility maximizing producer should not choose to select full coverage RP but rather select the 75 percent RP and pair it with the ARC program. This analysis is conducted under the conceptual frameworks of expected-utility and cumulative prospect theory.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the costs of reducing pesticide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment losses of a representative risk-neutral and risk-averse peanut-cotton farmer in Southeast Virginia. Five currently popular rotations and eight alternative conservation rotations are evaluated for the representative farm. The Erosion-Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) model is used to simulate pesticide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and soil loss from each rotation using actual rainfall and temperature data from the study area. A Target-MOTAD mathematical programming model, REPVAFARM, is developed and solved with GAMS. The objective of the farmer is to maximize expected net return, while meeting a target income with certain allowable expected shortfall from the income target. The farmer is also constrained by land, labor, peanut quota, and levels of pesticide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and soil losses. Major findings of this study are: reducing pesticide, nitrogen, phosphorus, and soil losses imposes costs to the farmer regardless of his risk attitude, with costs ranking from high to low in the order of reducing all pollutant losses, reducing nitrogen losses, reducing phosphorus losses, reducing soil losses, and reducing pesticide losses. Costs of reducing pollutant losses are higher for more risk-averse farmers than for less risk-averse and risk-neutral farmers implying that risk-aversion is an obstacle to the adoption of alternative conservation practices. Reducing pesticide losses has little impact on other pollutants. Reducing pesticide and nitrogen losses simultaneously achieves similar reductions in soil loss and phosphorus loss. / Master of Science

This thesis contributes to the theoretical work on decision and game theory when decision makers or players perceive ambiguity. The first article introduces a new axiomatic framework for ambiguity aversion and provides axiomatic characterizations for important preference classes that thus far had lacked characterizations. The second article introduces a new axiom called Weak Monotonicity which is shown to play a crucial role in the multiple prior model. It is shown that for many important preference classes, the assumption of monotonic preferences is a consequence of the other axioms and does not have to be assumed. The third article introduces an intuitive definition of perceived ambiguity in the multiple prior model. It is shown that the approach allows an application to games where players perceive strategic ambiguity. A very general equilibrium existence result is given. The modelling capabilities of the approach are highlighted through the analysis of examples. The fourth article applies the model from the previous article to a specific class of games with a lattice-structure. We perform comparative statics on perceived ambiguity and ambiguity attitude. We show that more optimism does not necessarily lead to higher equilibria when players have Alpha-Maxmin preferences. We present necessary and sufficient conditions on the structure of the prior sets for this comparative statics result to hold. The introductory chapter provides the basis of the four articles in this thesis. An overview of axiomatic decision theory, decision-making under ambiguity and ambiguous games is given. It introduces and discusses the most relevant results from the literature.