Individuals are affected by different biases and heuristics in different ways. This dissertation explores the two of these (underdog bias and self-rated performance) and their relationship with personal risk propensity in the South African investment professional community. To measure risk propensity in investment professionals, a new instrument was developed. This was tested against a risk measurement scale based on the original work in prospect theory. Both risk propensity measures found similar and comparable results in the investment professionals, and similar results when compared to other studies that studied risk propensity in a more general population and risk tolerance in investment professionals in Europe. Similarly, self-rated performance had comparable results to other studies on overconfidence bias and the better than average effect. Investment professionals, on average, think that they are better than their average peer. Underdog bias, or the headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry, had an unexpected result where the investment professionals felt they did not suffer from stronger headwinds and barriers compared to their peers. This was an unexpected result and may show that the South African investment industry feel more grateful than others to be where they are or, the sample may have triggered the boundary condition of underdog bias where individuals feel their personalised benefits more than their shared headwinds. Further testing is required in the same population as well as similar populations to confirm the boundary condition. The three constructs were tested to understand the relationship between them. In each of the three cases, there was no significant relationship between any of the constructs. The results were different to what was expected and, subject to further testing, may have found a blind spot in investment professionals where they believe that what when they are doing something they consider to be right, they do not perceive the increased risks associated with the action. These blind spots have an impact on how risk is managed investment firms and needs to be monitored to protect the overall firm. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

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Research shows that early childhood interventions with fidelity to Montessori model generate learner’s outcomes that outperform the traditional model. The evidence is confirmed in developed and in developing countries. This formative evaluation reports the results of a Montessori model in implementation in township of Mfuleni, located in Cape Town, South Africa. Providing insights into the functioning of the programme, the evaluation confirms that the roll out of the Montessori model is still underway which may explain the reason of the learners not outperforming the comparison group.

The use of automated procedures has recently become popular in the causal inference literature. Naive implementations of automatic procedures stand in contrast to the perspective advocated in Imbens and Rubin's Causal Inference. Imbens and Rubin suggest that researchers should make modelling decisions informed by subjective knowledge. We make use of simulated data to compare Imbens and Rubin's approach to naive implementations of two automatic procedures: Genetic Matching and Entropy Balancing. In addition we perform a small Monte Carlo simulation, based on one of the simulated data sets. Using the simulated data sets and the Monte Carlo simulations, we illustrate and explore benefits and drawbacks of the different approaches. We argue that there are benefits to make use of design-decisions grounded in subjective knowledge.

Research on the Advanced Placement (AP) program generally shows that students scoring 4s and 5s on AP exams outperform their non-AP peers in subsequent college courses. However, faculty often advise students with AP credit to repeat prerequisite courses in college before attempting advanced coursework, and there are few studies that provide empirical evidence about outcomes related to the use of AP credit. I compared grades of 26,843 students in 34 STEM courses using two-level cross-sectional multilevel modeling and found that students with AP credit in biology, calculus, chemistry, or physics significantly outperformed non-AP students after controlling for high school GPA and SAT Math scores, whether they used their AP credit to fulfill course pre-requisites or not. Additionally, I investigated outcomes of 10,152 students who had earned AP credit for course pre-requisites, depending on whether or not they chose to use their AP credit or repeat it at the college level prior to taking subsequent courses. I found that contextual factors, such as the specific target course and the student’s home college, were highly influential in determining the propensity to use AP credit. Measures of prior academic achievement also influenced the propensity to use AP credit, but most demographic factors did not. After applying propensity weights, I found no causal effect of using AP credit on subsequent course grades. The use of two-level cross-sectional multilevel modeling showed that the effect of using AP credit on subsequent course grades varied significantly across courses. The results of this study show that students who use AP credit to move directly into subsequent college STEM courses do not earn lower grades in those courses as a result of their decision to use AP credit.

Using the multilevel framework, this multi-institutional study took different approaches to study undergraduate students’ retention in engineering programs. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, using Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development, the aim was to control for macro-level factors which may create a selection bias in student admission into engineering programs. The outcome fed the second phase, which aimed to analyze student’s retention for different populations.

The present study examines whether the presence of school resource officers (SROs) and their level of involvement in place management activities are associated with higher or lower rates of school-based serious violence. This study uses data from the 2010 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) conducted by National Center for Educational Statistics. Propensity score matching is used to create a quasi-experimental design and isolate the influence of SROs and their level of involvement in place management activities on school-based serious violence. The analysis reveals that schools with a school resource officer are associated with higher rates of reported serious violence and those schools with SROs that participate in more place manager duties are also associated with higher rates of reported serious violence. These findings do not support the notion that SROs are acting as effective place managers and through this place management, reducing reported serious violence. Rather, it appears that the presences of a SRO and their execution of place manager duties is associated with an increase in the reporting of serious violence. Policy implications and limitations of the current research are also discussed.

This thesis examines the environmental effect of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in the Czech Republic. Specifically, the impact of the EU ETS on CO2 emissions, carbon-fuel intensity and carbon intensity of production (measured by revenues) is analysed on installation-level financial, environmental and energy data throughout all three phases of the EU ETS over 2005 - 2019. The difference-in-differences approach with propensity score matching is used to infer the causal effect of the regulation. We find no effect of the EU ETS on carbon emissions and carbon intensities in the Czech Republic. This finding holds for various model specifications and different approaches we utilised. In the end, we discuss possible reasons why the EU ETS might not lead to any significant effect in the Czech Republic. JEL Classification O13, F18, Q54, Q58, H23, D22 Keywords EU ETS, environmental regulation, propen- sity score matching, difference-in-differences, the Czech Republic Title The impact of the EU ETS in the Czech Repub- lic

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第21005号 / 医博第4351号 / 新制||医||1028(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 小西 靖彦, 教授 福原 俊一, 教授 小池 薫 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第21301号 / 医博第4390号 / 新制||医||1030(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 川上 浩司, 教授 小池 薫, 教授 福原 俊一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM