The Experts below are selected from a list of 5010 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Shayak Sarkar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market
The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2017Co-Authors: Santosh Anagol, Shawn Cole, Shayak SarkarAbstract:We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate the quality of advice provided by life insurance agents in India. Agents overwhelmingly recommend unsuitable, strictly dominated products, which provide high commissions to the agent. Agents cater to the beliefs of uninformed consumers, even when those beliefs are wrong. We also find that agents appear to focus on maximizing the amount of premiums (and therefore commissions) that customers pay, as opposed to focusing on how much insurance coverage customers need. A natural experiment requiring Disclosure of commissions for a specific product results in agents recommending alternative products with high commissions but no Disclosure Requirement. A follow-up agent survey sheds light on the extent to which poor advice reflects both the commission incentives as well as agents' limited product knowledge.
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understanding the incentives of commissions motivated agents theory and evidence from the indian life insurance market
2012Co-Authors: Santosh Anagol Wharton, Shawn Cole, Shayak SarkarAbstract:We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate two competing views of the role of financial service intermediaries in providing product recommendations to potentially uninformed consumers. One view argues intermediaries provide valuable product education, and guide consumers towards suitable products. Consumers understand how commissions affect agents’ incentives, and make optimal product choices. The second view argues that intermediaries recommend and sell products that maximize the agents’ well-being, with little or no regard for the customer. Audit studies in the Indian life insurance market find evidence supporting the second view: in 60-80% of visits, agents recommend unsuitable (strictly dominated) products that provide high commissions to the agents. Customers who specifically express interest in a suitable product are more likely to receive an appropriate recommendation, though most still receive bad advice. Agents cater to the beliefs of uninformed consumers, even when those beliefs are wrong. We then test how regulation and market structure affect advice. A natural experiment that required agents to describe commissions for a specific product caused agents to shift recommendations to an alternative product, which had even higher commissions but no Disclosure Requirement. We do find some scope for market discipline to generate debiasing: when auditors express inconsistent beliefs about the product suitable from them, and mention they have received advice from another seller of insurance, they are more likely to receive suitable advice. Agents provide better advice to more sophisticated consumers. Finally, we describe a model in which dominated products survive in equilibrium, even with competition. ∗anagol@wharton.upenn.edu, scole@hbs.edu, and ssarkar@fas.harvard.edu. iTrust provided valuable context on the Indian insurance market for this project. We also thank Daniel Bergstresser, Sendhil Mullainathan, Petia Topalova, Peter Tufano, Shing-Yi Wang, Justin Wolfers, and workshop participants at Harvard Business School, Helsinki Finance Summit, Hunter College, the ISB CAF Conference, the NBER Household Finance Working Group, the NBER Insurance Working Group, Princeton, the RAND Behavioral Finance Forum, and the Utah Winter Finance Conference for comments and suggestions. We thank the Harvard Lab for Economic and Policy Applications, Wharton Global Initiatives, Wharton Dean’s Research Fund, Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, and the Penn Lauder CIBER Fund for financial support. Manoj Garg, Shahid Vaziralli and Anand Kothari provided excellent research assistance.
Damien Bergeat - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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research transparency promotion by surgical journals publishing randomised controlled trials a survey
Trials, 2020Co-Authors: Nicolas Lombard, A Gasmi, Laurent Sulpice, Karim Boudjema, Florian Naudet, Damien BergeatAbstract:To describe surgical journals’ position statements on data-sharing policies (primary objective) and to describe key features of their research transparency promotion. Only “SURGICAL” journals with an impact factor higher than 2 (Web of Science) were eligible for the study. They were included, if there were explicit instructions for clinical trial publication in the official instructions for authors (OIA) or if they had published randomised controlled trial (RCT) between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2018. The primary outcome was the existence of a data-sharing policy included in the instructions for authors. Data-sharing policies were grouped into 3 categories, inclusion of data-sharing policy mandatory, optional, or not available. Details on research transparency promotion were also collected, namely the existence of a “prospective registration of clinical trials Requirement policy”, a conflict of interests (COIs) Disclosure Requirement, and a specific reference to reporting guidelines, such as CONSORT for RCT. Among the 87 surgical journals identified, 82 were included in the study: 67 (82%) had explicit instructions for RCT and the remaining 15 (18%) had published at least one RCT. The median impact factor was 2.98 [IQR = 2.48–3.77], and in 2016 and 2017, the journals published a median of 11.5 RCT [IQR = 5–20.75]. The OIA of four journals (5%) stated that the inclusion of a data-sharing statement was mandatory, optional in 45% (n = 37), and not included in 50% (n = 41). No association was found between journal characteristics and the existence of data-sharing policies (mandatory or optional). A “prospective registration of clinical trials Requirement” was associated with International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) allusion or affiliation and higher impact factors. Journals with specific RCT instructions in their OIA and journals referenced on the ICMJE website more frequently mandated the use of CONSORT guidelines. Research transparency promotion is still limited in surgical journals. Standardisation of journal Requirements according to ICMJE guidelines could be a first step forward for research transparency promotion in surgery.
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research transparency promotion by surgical journals publishing randomised controlled trials a survey
medRxiv, 2019Co-Authors: Nicolas Lombard, A Gasmi, Laurent Sulpice, Karim Boudjema, Florian Naudet, Damien BergeatAbstract:Abstract Objective To describe the surgical journal position statement on data-sharing policies (primary objective) and to describe the other features of their research transparency promotion. Methods Only “SURGICAL” journals with an impact factor superior to 2 (Web of Science) were eligible for the study. They were not included if there were no explicit instructions for clinical trial publication in the instructions for authors and if there were no RCT published between January 2016 and January 2019. The primary outcome was the existence of a data-sharing policy in the instructions for authors. Details on research transparency promotion were also collected, namely the existence of a “prospective registration of clinical trials Requirement” policy; a “COIs” Disclosure Requirement and a specific reference to reporting guidelines such as CONSORT for RCT. Results Among the 87 surgical journals eligible, 82 (94%) were included in the analysis: 67 (77%) had explicit instructions for RCT and of the remaining, 15 (17.2%) had published at least one RCT between 2016-2019. The median impact factor was 2.98 [IQR=2.48-3.77] and in 2016 and 2017, the journals published a median of 11.5 RCT [IQR=5-20.75]. Data-sharing statement instructions (primary outcome) were ICMJE-compliant in four cases (4.88%), weaker in 45.12% (n=37) and inexistent in 50% (n=41) of the journals. As for data-sharing statements, no association was found between journal characteristics and the existence of data-sharing policies (ICMJE-compliant or weaker). A “prospective registration of clinical trials Requirement” was associated with ICMJE allusion or affiliation and higher impact factors. Journals with specific RCT instructions in their OIA and journals referenced on the ICMJE website more frequently mandated the use of CONSORT guidelines. Conclusion Research transparency promotion is still limited in surgical journals. Uniformization of journal Requirements vis-a-vis ICMJE guidelines could be a first step forward for research transparency promotion in surgery.
Alexandra K Zaby - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Strategic Use of Fuzziness in Patent Specifications The Strategic Use of Fuzziness in Patent Specifications The Strategic Use of Fuzziness in Patent Specifications
2020Co-Authors: Alexandra K Zaby, Diana HegerAbstract:Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar. Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. Non-technical summary For providing protection for intellectual property, patent law requires the comprehensive description of the invention, its making and using. The goal of this Disclosure Requirement is to provide newly generated knowledge to the public, and thus, to foster technological progress. Since a patent affects competition on the market for ideas and the product market, the patenting decision incorporates a strategic decision. Economic literature commonly ignores that the extent to which a patent actually discloses information about the invention itself is a strategic decision of the applicant. In this paper, a three-stage theoretical model illustrates the decision process of a patent applicant. A follow-on invention can successfully be made by a potential follower who bases his research on the original patent. The applicant can choose between either a fuzzy or a distinct formulation in the patent specification whereas he has to take into account two countervailing effects: On the one hand, a fuzzy description decreases the usability of a patent for the followers as it increases their research costs and at the same time their probability of success to achieve the follow-on invention. On the other hand, fuzziness decreases the granting probability. This model can also be linked to the quality of patent examination. Even if the quality is high (i.e. the granting probability for a fuzzy patent is lower than the one for a distinct patent) some cases exist for which fuzzy description is more profitable for the inventor despite the higher risk of not receiving the grant. These results allow careful recommendations for policymakers and patent offices. If the goal of patent policy is an appropriate incentive system which yields clear and precise patent descriptions in order to foster technological progress, the granting probability should be strongly reduced for fuzzy specifications. A possible way to achieve this could be the request for a proof of concept and/or experimentation data. This may improve the quality of examination and the quality of knowledge Disclosure via patents. Such a procedure would be analogous to the publication procedures of scientific results, for which a precise description of data, measurement and methods is required. Das Wichtigste in Kürze The Strategic Use of Fuzziness in Patent Specifications Alexandra K. Zaby † * and Diana Heger ‡ * Abstract Innovators seek to protect their intellectual assets by patenting them, at the same time trying to avoid any Disclosure of critical knowledge. Given that a patent specification has to include a clear description of the patented matter so that anybody "skilled in the art" is enabled to reproduce the invention, the non-Disclosure intention seems contradictory to patent law. This paper provides a model identifying the incentives for firms to deliberately obscure their inventive knowledge in a patent specification
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losing the lead the patenting decision in the light of the Disclosure Requirement
Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 2010Co-Authors: Alexandra K ZabyAbstract:Empirical findings state that the Disclosure Requirement might be a reason for firms to rely on secrecy rather than patents to protect their inventions. We choose a dynamic framework in which we can explicitly analyze the patenting decision reflecting the tradeoff between a positive protective effect and a negative effect due to the required Disclosure of the protected invention. In spite of a patent, the inventor's rival may still enter the market with a non-infringing product. Measuring the technological lead of the inventor by a time advantage he has compared with his rival, we show that if his headstart exceeds a critical threshold, he will not patent and rather rely on secrecy.
Santosh Anagol - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Understanding the Advice of Commissions-Motivated Agents: Evidence from the Indian Life Insurance Market
The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2017Co-Authors: Santosh Anagol, Shawn Cole, Shayak SarkarAbstract:We conduct a series of field experiments to evaluate the quality of advice provided by life insurance agents in India. Agents overwhelmingly recommend unsuitable, strictly dominated products, which provide high commissions to the agent. Agents cater to the beliefs of uninformed consumers, even when those beliefs are wrong. We also find that agents appear to focus on maximizing the amount of premiums (and therefore commissions) that customers pay, as opposed to focusing on how much insurance coverage customers need. A natural experiment requiring Disclosure of commissions for a specific product results in agents recommending alternative products with high commissions but no Disclosure Requirement. A follow-up agent survey sheds light on the extent to which poor advice reflects both the commission incentives as well as agents' limited product knowledge.
Terry L. Neal - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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audit committee financial experts a closer examination using firm designations
Accounting Horizons, 2006Co-Authors: Joseph V. Carcello, Carl W Hollingsworth, Terry L. NealAbstract:The Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX) requires the Disclosure of whether the audit committee has a financial expert. We examine Disclosures related to audit committee financial experts (ACFEs) in the first year that this Disclosure Requirement is in effect. We find that virtually all companies disclose whether an ACFE is on the audit committee, although the transparency of the Disclosure regarding the ACFE's background is limited. We also find that most ACFEs do not have a background in accounting or finance, although there are notable differences between stock exchanges on this dimension. In addition, we find that companies designate ACFEs who would not have been identified using extant research methods, and companies fail to voluntarily designate many individuals who appear to qualify as an ACFE, particularly if another audit committee member is already designated as an ACFE. Thus, some companies appear to be extremely conservative in designating directors as ACFEs, possibly due to concerns about the legal liabi...
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the effects of joint provision and Disclosure of nonaudit services on audit committee members decisions and investors preferences
The Accounting Review, 2006Co-Authors: Lisa Milici Gaynor, Linda S Mcdaniel, Terry L. NealAbstract:Recent corporate governance reforms that require audit committees to pre‐approve audit and nonaudit services increase audit committees' accountability to third parties for actual auditor independence and audit quality. Other SEC reforms mandate the Disclosure of fees for auditor‐provided services and are aimed at influencing investors' perceptions of auditor independence. These fee Disclosures also reveal audit committees' pre‐approval decisions, enhancing public accountability. Thus, audit committees may be less willing to hire auditors for nonaudit services to avoid fee Disclosures, even when joint provision improves audit quality. One hundred experienced corporate directors, responding as audit committee members or investors, participated in an experiment in which we manipulated the effect of the auditor's provision of nonaudit services on audit quality and the fee Disclosure Requirement. We find that audit committee members are more likely to recommend joint provision if audit quality improves, consis...