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In 1978 Congress weakened several key provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which had been enacted only five years earlier. The objective is to compare alternative explanations for this policy reversal. Methods. Probit & multinomial logit models are used to explain empirically how senators voted in both 1973 & 1978, & to investigate why many senators switched their vote from supporting ESA to weakening it. Results. The findings here indicate that party affiliation & policy-maker preferences were not important to the 1973 vote, but they were key variables in the 1978 votes & the vote-switching decision. Proxies for unexpected economic impacts of ESA on individual states have little explanatory power. Conclusions. Ignorance, as measured here, does not appear to explain this policy reversal; rather, an influx of relatively conservative Democrats between 1973 & 1978 presents itself as the leading explanation. 5 Tables, 25 References. Adapted from the source document.

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a methodology for analyzing Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) rankings if the pairwise preference judgments are uncertain (stochastic). If the relative preference statements are represented by judgment intervals, rather than single values, then the rankings resulting from a traditional (deterministic) AHP analysis based on single judgment values may be reversed, and therefore incorrect. In the presence of stochastic judgments, the traditional AHP rankings may be stable or unstable, depending on the nature of the uncertainty.We develop multivariate statistical techniques to obtain both point estimates and confidence intervals of the rank reversal probabilities, and show how simulation experiments can be used as an effective and accurate tool for analyzing the stability of the preference rankings under uncertainty. If the rank reversal probability is low, then the rankings are stable and the decision maker can be confident that the AHP ranking is correct. However, if the likelihood of rank reversal is high, then the decision maker should interpret the AHP rankings cautiously, as there is a subtantial probability that these rankings are incorrect. High rank reversal probabilities indicate a need for exploring alternative problem formulations and methods of analysis.The information about the extent to which the ranking of the alternatives is sensitive to the stochastic nature of the pairwise judgments should be valuable information into the decision‐making process, much like variability and confidence intervals are crucial tools for statistical inference. We provide simulation experiments and numerical examples to evaluate our method.Our analysis of rank reversal due to stochastic judgments is not related to previous research on rank reversal that focuses on mathematical properties inherent to the AHP methodology, for instance, the occurrence of rank reversal if a new alternative is added or an existing one is deleted.

This article argues that the threat of review and reversal by supervising courts affects circuit court judges differently in disputes focusing on law compared to disputes focusing on facts. Because fact-bound cases are less likely to be reviewed than law-bound cases, lower court judges are freer to indulge their policy preferences in fact-bound cases. I test this argument using computer-assisted content analysis to measure the extent to which legal disputes are based on interpretations of facts and interpretations of relevant legal standards, respectively. The results of this content analysis are then used as independent variables in a model predicting the outcomes of legal challenges to the actions of administrative agencies. The results indicate that highly fact-bound decisions amplify the effects of judicial ideology while highly law-bound decisions constrain the effects of ideology.

"Behavioral Decision Theory" published on by Oxford University Press.

An important question in economics is how people choose between different payments in the future. The classical normative model predicts that a decision maker discounts a later payment relative to an earlier one by an exponential function of the time between them. Descriptive models use nonexponential functions to fit observed behavioral phenomena, such as preference reversal. Here we propose a model of discounting, consistent with standard axioms of choice, in which decision makers maximize the growth rate of their wealth. Four specifications of the model produce four forms of discounting—no discounting, exponential discounting, hyperbolic discounting, and a hybrid of exponential and hyperbolic discounting—two of which predict preference reversal. Our model requires no assumption of behavioral bias or payment risk.

We demonstrate that a rank-preserving transfer from a richer individual to a poorer individual can exacerbate income inequality (when inequality is measured by the Gini coefficient). This happens when individuals' preferences depend negatively not only on work time (effort) but also on low relative income. It is rigorously shown that the set of preference profiles that gives rise to this perverse effect of a transfer on inequality is a non-empty open subset of all preference profiles. A robust example illustrates this result. -- A rank-preserving inequality-narrowing transfer ; The Gini coefficient ; Low relative income ; Relative deprivation ; Exacerbated inequality

MOST MODELS OF CHOICE THREAT DECISIONS AS IF THEY OCCUR BUT ONCE. BUT PEOPLE ARE CONTINUALLY MAKING CHOICES, AND OFTEN THEY ARE ASKED TO MAKE SIMILAR CHOICES AT DIFFERENT TIMES. IT IS NOT UNUSUAL TO FIND CHOICE REVERSALS, IN WHICH A CHOICE MADE AT ONE TIME IS REVERSED AT ANOTHER. EVEN IF CHOICE REVERSALS DO NOT OCCUR, BECAUSE EXACTLY SIMILAR CHOICES SELDOM RECUR, GREAT INCONSISTENCIES IN CHOICE ACROSS TIME ARE READILY OBSERVABLE. TO EXPLAIN SUCH INCONSISTENCIES, IT SEEMS THAT ONE MUST POSTULATE EITHER A RAPID CHANGE IN PREFERENCES OR IRRATIONALITY (NOT MAKING A CHOICE BASED ON ONE'S PREFERENCES). THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES A ATTENTIVENESS TO PREFERENCES CAN SHIFT ABRUPTLY AS THE DECISIONAL CONTEXT CHANGES. SHIFTS IN ATTENTIVENESS, OFTEN ACCOUNT FOR CHOICE INCONSISTENCIES.

Analysis of the United States' shift to support of trade preferences for developing countries in 1967 provides evidence for the value of a "bureaucratic politics" model that pays attention to the importance of transgovernmental relations in influencing national policy making. Between 1964 and 1967, international organizations affected, United States policy making on trade preferences, and officials within the US government who favored preferences used such organizations-particularly the OECD-to help change American policy. Intergovernmental, transgovernmental, and national levels of policy making were closely linked to one another. This case study suggests the need for a broadened conception of "bureaucratic politics"; but it also supports the view that the "bureaucratic politics" and "rational actor" approaches are fundamentally complementary rather than antithetical.

Census Bureau population estimates for metro politan and nonmetropolitan areas in the 1970s reveal, for the first time in over 50 years, higher population growth and net in-migration for nonmetropolitan areas than metropolitan areas. This dramatic and largely unanticipated reversal in the traditional population growth pattern is not limited to non metropolitan areas adjacent to metropolitan centers, but is also happening in many of the remote nonmetropolitan counties. In this article, the impact of residential preferences on population dispersal migration behavior is analyzed by means of data from a longitudinal migration survey. The widespread preference for small cities, villages, and the countryside identified in public opinion polls is not the sig nificant factor in nonmetropolitan migration. Rather, popula tion dispersal migrants are characterized by the willingness and apparently better ability to give up the urban-based conveniences to shopping, work, and public transportation to live in nonmetropolitan environments. Barring the crip pling effect of an energy crisis, the medium-range prospect for continued nonmetropolitan population growth appears plausible.

Objective. In 1978 Congress weakened several key provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which had been enacted only five years earlier. The objective is to compare alternative explanations for this policy reversal.Methods. Probit and multinomial logit models are used to explain empirically how senators voted in both 1973 and 1978, and to investigate why many senators switched their vote from supporting ESA to weakening it.Results. The findings here indicate that party affiliation and policy‐maker preferences were not important to the 1973 vote, but they were key variables in the 1978 votes and the vote‐switching decision. Proxies for unexpected economic impacts of ESA on individual states have little explanatory power.Conclusions. Ignorance, as measured here, does not appear to explain this policy reversal; rather, an influx of relatively conservative Democrats between 1973 and 1978 presents itself as the leading explanation.

Although men tended to receive more education than women in the past, the gender gap in education has reversed in recent decades in most Western and many non-Western countries. We review the literature about the implications for union formation, assortative mating, the division of paid and unpaid work, and union stability in Western countries. The bulk of the evidence points to a narrowing of gender differences in mate preferences and declining aversion to female status-dominant relationships. Couples in which wives have more education than their husbands now outnumber those in which husbands have more. Although such marriages were more unstable in the past, existing studies indicate that this is no longer true. In addition, recent studies show less evidence of gender display in housework when wives have higher status than their husbands. Despite these shifts, other research documents the continuing influence of the breadwinner-homemaker model of marriage.

We study intertemporal choices through an experiment that elicits a subject's plan and then tracks its implementation over time. There are two main results. When facing a costly task to be completed under a deadline, two thirds of subjects prefer anticipating it rather than postponing it. Choice reversals are common although present-biased preferences alone cannot explain them. This evidence is compatible with models based on anticipatory feelings and stochastic utility.