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An experimental study was performed investigating the influence of handrail height on the ability of stairway users to generate stabilizing forces and moments, with the aim of improving stairway safety by developing better handrail design standards. The experiments involved measurement of the maximum forces and moments that subjects were able to exert on a handrail while they stood stationary in an upright position. Two age groups were tested: young (20 to 45 years) and elderly (59 years and over), with a total of 35 subjects. All subjects showed a strong linear dependence on handrail height in generating stabilizing forces and moments. Ability to generate forward/backward forces and forward/backward moments increased linearly with increasing handrail height. Ability to generate upward force decreased linearly with increasing handrail height. Based on the results, an optimal design range for handrail height was estimated.

Confidence in and responses to an unreliable test alarm were studied in the presence of nearby unspecified alarms. The test alarm's reliability rate was represented as averaging "true" only 50% or 60% of the time. Confidence or response rates ranged proportionately from 23% to 97% with the number of active alarms within 5, 6, 7, or 9 annunciator arrays. Adjacent alarms resulted in confidence estimates that were higher (by about 10%) than those with the same number of active alarms spaced up to 3 positions away. Simultaneously activated alarms resulted in a more than 20% increase in "true" responses compared with the same number of alarms offset in time by up to 32 s, regardless of which came first. Active alarms "known" to be functionally related to, or independent of, the test alarm substantially raised or lowered responding but did not completely overcome prior effects. These findings indicate that presumptions that operators' responses are not influenced by nearby alarms, regardless of their function, may be unwarranted. Applications of this research include suggestions to improve responding and training recommendations.

Over the past 20 years, macroeconomists have incorporated more and more results from behavioral economics into their models. We argue that doing so has helped fixed deficiencies with standard approaches to modeling the economy-for example, the counterfactual absence of inertia in the standard New Keynesian model of economic fluctuations. We survey efforts to use behavioral economics to improve some of the underpinnings of the New Keynesian model-specifically, consumption, the formation of expectations and determination of wages and employment that underlie aggregate supply, and the possibility of multiple equilibria and asset price bubbles. We also discuss more broadly the advantages and disadvantages of using behavioral economics features in macroeconomic models.

This paper analyzes how bounded rationality affects monetary and fiscal policy via an empirically relevant enrichment of the New Keynesian model. It models agents' partial myopia toward distant atypical events using a new microfounded "cognitive discounting" parameter. Compared to the rational model, (i) there is no forward guidance puzzle; (ii) the Taylor principle changes: with passive monetary policy but enough myopia equilibria are determinate and economies stable; (iii) the zero lower bound is much less costly; (iv) price-level targeting is not optimal; (v) fiscal stimulus is effective; (vi) the model is " neo-Fisherian" in the long run, Keynesian in the short run. (JEL E12, E31, E43, E52, E62, E70)