Common Ground: Framing and the Potential to Mitigate Herbicide Resistance Using Collective Action

Over the decades, scientists across various disciplines have cautioned against the practice of over-emphasizing statistical significance at the expense of economic or practical significance. It seems that empirical researchers in the 21st century have not heeded the caution because meeting statistical significance targets continue to take precedence over the wider discovery and publication of scientifically objective findings. Statistically insignificant results are rarely reported, in part due to publication bias towards statistically significant findings. The survey finds that although large sample sizes are widely used in empirical economics and finance research, none of the surveyed papers adopted alternative methods of hypothesis testing, such as Bayesian methods. All of them explicitly or implicitly used the classical Fisher’s hypothesis testing methods. This study finds that discussions on economic significance in nearly all papers (almost 97% of papers) only wrote one sentence or two regarding the magnitude of the effect of the regressors and a declaration that the findings were economically significant. We recommend that to enhance research credibility, other methods of hypothesis testing such as Bayesian methods, should be adopted. Journal article publishers should encourage the publication of statistically insignificant empirical findings. Economic or practical significance should be emphasized and comprehensively discussed.

Harvey (2017) and The American Statistical Association (2016) point out that business decisions should not be based only on whether the p-value of an empirical model passes a specific threshold and that statistical significance (p-value) cannot measure the size of an effect or the importance of a result. In other words, for economic problems economic significance is required and an economic model evaluation criterion is desirable. This paper derives a criterion for economic significance of valuation differences between empirical models and shows empirically that nearly all empirical models applied in business valuation are dis-similar, i.e., result in economically significant valuation differences. Motivated by the degree of dis-similarity between empirical models, an economic model evaluation criterion is developed. It judges the implicit economic assumptions revealed by computing the dual program of empirical models with the help of compliance with the economic principle and fit to institutional circumstances. Based on this economic model evaluation criterion our paper elaborates that within the group of cross-sectional price models quantile regression proves to be the best model because it is able to offer a good approximation to the economic principle and mimics best the institutional circumstances, in particular, if the regression is run without a constant. On the other hand, statistically more advanced models like generalized least squares regression deteriorates the implied economic content of models.

The purpose of this paper is to examine economic significance as a fourth measure of significance. In addition to describing and operationalising the concept of economic significance, a typology of economic significance indices is presented, including an example of how to compute these measures, as well as how to utilise them in applied research. We demonstrate how interventions that yield no statistical, practical or clinical effects may be economically significant. Economic significance is not only relevant in the majority of educational research studies, but also is more readily understood by policy makers and stakeholders than are the other three measures of significance, thereby facilitating the accountability of educational quality as a shared responsibility.

The Prunus genus contains many of the most economically significant arboreal crops, cultivated globally, today. Despite the economic significance of these domesticated species, the pre-cultivation ranges, processes of domestication, and routes of prehistoric dispersal for all of the economically significant species remain unresolved. Among the European plums, even the taxonomic classification has been heavily debated over the past several decades. In this manuscript, we compile archaeobotanical evidence for the most prominent large-fruiting members of Prunus, including peach, apricot, almonds, sloes, and the main plum types. By mapping out the chronology and geographic distributions of these species, we are able to discuss aspects of their domestication and dispersal more clearly, as well as identify gaps in the data and unanswered questions. We suggest that a clearer understanding of these processes will say a lot about ancient peoples, as the cultivation of delayed return crops is an indicator of a strong concept of land tenure and the specialization of these cultivation strategies seems to be tied to urbanism and reliable markets. Likewise, the evolution of domestication traits in long-generation perennials, especially within Rosaceae, represents awareness of grafting and cloning practices.

Deep learning is drawing keen attention in contemporary financial research. In this article, the authors investigate the statistical predictive power and economic significance of financial stock market data by using deep learning techniques. In particular, the authors use the equity premium as the response variable and financial variables as predictors. The deep learning techniques used in this study provide useful evidence of statistical predictability and economic significance. Considering the statistical predictive performance of the deep learning models, H2O deep learning (H2ODL) gives the smallest mean-squared forecast error (MSFE), with the corresponding highest cumulative return (CR) and Sharpe ratio (SR) in each of the out-of-sample periods. Specifically, the H2ODL with Rectifier used as the activation function outperformed the other models in this article. In the fusion results, the SAE-with-H2O using the Maxout activation function yields the smallest MSFE with the corresponding highest CR and SR in all of the out-of-sample periods. It is worth noting that the higher the CR, the higher the SR and the lower the MSFE, which concords with a rule of thumb. Overall, the empirical analysis in this study revealed that the SAE-with-H2O using the Maxout activation function produced the best statistically predictive and economically significant results with robustness across all out-of-sample periods. <b>TOPICS:</b>Big data/machine learning, performance measurement, quantitative methods, simulations, statistical methods <b>Key Findings</b> ▪ In this article, the authors use deep learning models to predict the equity premium, employing a plethora of well-known predictors. ▪ The authors employ deep learning models such as deep neural networks, a stacked autoencoder, and long short-term memory models. ▪ The statistical and economic significance of the proposed models is examined and back tested in three out-of-sample periods.

North American potato production differs from other geographical regions such as Europe in that it is essentially a closed system, i.e., seed potatoes are not imported and production is dominated by only a few cultivars. The lack of significant seed imports provides a mechanism for seed certification to be extremely effective at minimizing virus levels in seed lots, especially if the changes in seed laws, postharvest testing, and tolerance limits discussed above are adopted. This is an opportunity to effectively manage PVY at levels that are at or below detection and well below economic significance. Aiding the seed certification programs in the adoption of the Canada/US-Management Plan for Potato Viruses that Cause Tuber Necrosis has and continues to build consensus and cooperation within the industry to reform and modernize seed certification practices and, as importantly, modernize best management practices that growers can implement so that their production meets or exceeds virus tolerances set within the seed certification standards. Seed inspectors could also benefit from continually updated information from the research community to help them better recognize the spectrum of symptoms caused by the various strains and variants of PVY in all the different cultivars now being grown in their states and provinces. They could also benefit from improved field diagnostics that will assist them and the growers in identifying problem plants that should be rogued. If PVY levels in seed can be minimized and on-farm management strategies can be optimized, then PVY incidence in the potato crop will be marginalized. The restricted distribution of the tuber necrotic strains also offers an opportunity to prevent these strains from becoming economically significant if appropriate testing of seed lots in those areas could prevent them from being planted. Shipping point inspections of tubers will also help in identifying and eliminating tuber necrotic viruses. The dominance of a few cultivars has been eroding in recent years. Russet Burbank, a cultivar introduced over 100 years ago, still accounts for 40 to 50% of the U.S. acreage, but acreage in the Northwestern United States has been declining steadily as other russet cultivars come on the market and gain acceptance. Potato cultivar has had a significant impact on the PVY problem, as with the release and widespread acceptance of Shepody, Russet Norkotah, and other asymptomatic carriers of PVY (http://oregonstate. edu/potatoes/latenttoPVYlist.htm), which in 2008 comprised more than 15 and 12% of the total U.S. and Canadian seed acreage, respectively. These cultivars have certainly contributed to the overall increase in PVY in the seed potato crop and by extension the commercial potato crop. The increased diversity of potato cultivars grown in both countries has also introduced a wider spectrum of PVY symptoms, most notably the milder symptoms that are characteristic of the PVYN/NTN and PVYN-Wi strains on many cultivars. Since the success of seed certification is dependent upon visual assessment of the crop, mild or absent symptoms means that many more infected plants go unnoticed. The more symptomatic PVYO strains are observed and removed, but the other strains remain in the crop and are passed along in the seed, contributing to an overall increase in PVY incidence and more importantly to a shift in PVY strain composition. The U.S. and Canadian potato industry stakeholders are increasingly aware of the PVY-associated challenges and have been moving rapidly to work with researchers and all aspects of the industry to implement plans to suppress PVY incidence. Continued education of growers, seed certification officials, and researchers alike, coupled with the development and adoption of new or revised best management practices and diagnostic tools, and the renewed inter est of breeders to develop virus resistant cultivars, will be the keys to success in bringing PVY incidence under control and in minimizing tuber necrotic strains.

Several recent studies present evidence of investor misreaction in the options market. While the interpretation of their results is still controversial, we note that the important question of economic significance has not been fully addressed. We fill in this gap by formulating regression-based tests to identify misreaction and its duration and constructing trading strategies to exploit the empirical patterns of misreaction. Using regular S&P 500 index options and long-dated S&P 500 LEAPS, we find an underreaction that on average dissipates over the course of three trading days and an increasing misreaction that peaks after four consecutive daily variance shocks of the same sign. Option trading strategies based on these findings produce economically significant abnormal returns in the range of one to three percent per day. However, they are not profitable in the presence of transaction costs.

Local Knowledge and Economical Significance of Commercialized Wild Edible Mushrooms in the Markets of Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. Wild edible mushrooms are a non-timber forest product of great importance because of their edibility, their cultural and ecological roles, and particularly their economic relevance as merchandise. This study presents a method for the identification of the most economically significant species through a compound index. Fieldwork was carried out in seven markets in the city of Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. We recorded the sale of 16 species that constitute 10 local ethnotaxa. Aspects of traditional mycological knowledge regarding systematics, ethnoecology, uses, and collection practices were also obtained. The most significant taxa were Hypomyces lactifluorum, Amanita complex. caesarea, Ramaria spp., and Lyophyllum decastes. We can suggest that the most economically significant species of mushrooms sold in this region are those with the highest supply in markets and correspondingly high profit for collectors. The compound index proved to be a useful tool not only to discover which species are the most relevant, but also to provide explanations for the reasons behind their significance.

Several recent studies present evidence of investor misreaction in the options market. Although the interpretation of their results is still controversial, the important question of economic significance has not been fully addressed. Here this gap is addressed by formulating regression‐based tests to identify misreaction and its duration and constructing trading strategies to exploit the empirical patterns of misreaction. Regular S&amp;P 500 index options and long‐dated S&amp;P 500 LEAPS are used to find an underreaction that on average dissipates over the course of 3 trading days and an increasing misreaction that peaks after four consecutive daily variance shocks of the same sign. Option trading strategies based on these findings produce economically significant abnormal returns in the range of 1–3% per day. However, they are not profitable in the presence of transaction costs. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 25:717–752, 2005

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 26, No. 1, May 1986, pp. 55-67 OPEN-RANGE CATTLE HERDING IN ANTEBELLUM SOUTH FLORIDA (1842-1860)* John Solomon Otto Forty years ago, historian Frank L. Owsley first drew attention to the cattle herders of the Old South (1784—1860) who possessed little land and few slaves, but who owned sizable cattle herds. Despite their lack of land and slaves, herders were economically significant, for they raised impressive numbers of beef cattle for domestic and foreign markets. Herders owned small homesteads, but they grazed their cattle on the unfeneed public lands, or "open-range," at no charge—a practice which was safeguarded by state laws until after the Civil War. Although cattle herders were found throughout the Old South, they were especially numerous on the coastal plain, where most of the land was unfeneed public domain. From Florida to Texas, herders raised cattle on the open-range, producing beef for Southern cities as well as for the West Indies. (J) During the past two decades, geographers and historians have rediscovered the Southern cattle herders and their economic significance. (2) The economic importance of cattle herding in the Old South is reflected in the federal census of 1860. From Florida to Texas, there was a patchwork of counties in 1860 which contained three or more cattle for each person in the county. Any antebellum county with a cattle-topeople ratio in excess of three to one was capable of producing a marketable surplus of beef cattle. (3) The highest cattle-to-people ratios in the Old South were found in south Texas. In 1860, the four south Texas counties of Refugio, San Patricio , Live Oak, and Bee recorded cattle-to-people ratios of 98 to one, 83 to one, 44 to one, and 41 to one respectively. (4) Given this huge cattle surplus, south Texas was the scene of an antebellum cattle herding industry which has been studied by scholars ranging from historian Walter P. Webb to geographer Terry G. Jordan. (5) The second highest cattle-to-people ratios in the Old South were * Research funds were provided by a National Endowment for the Humanities "State, Local and Regional Studies" grant. Dr. Otto is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. 56Southeastern Geographer found in south Florida. By 1860, three south Florida counties of Manatee , Brevard, and Hillsborough (Fig. 1) posted cattle-to-people ratios of 37 to one, 31 to one, and 13 to one respectively. (6) And given this sizable cattle surplus, south Florida was also the scene of commerical cattle herding. But unlike south Texas, the antebellum cattle industry of South Florida has been largely overlooked by historians and geographers . (7) This scholarly neglect of antebellum south Florida is hardly surprising , since the region was the ultima Thule of the Old South. It was an isolated frontier, which attracted little attention during the antebellum years. South Florida, however, did attract some settlers, and occasionally one of them described the region in articles which were published in antebellum agricultural journals. Few antebellum settlers in south Florida failed to mention the sandy pinewoods which dominated the landscape. (8) These barren lands supported little more than scattered pine trees, "dwarf palmettos ," and "wiregrass." (9) Though pinewoods land was "worthless for agricultural purposes," it was unsurpassed "as a grazing country." Thanks to the mild south Florida winters, grass grew "most luxuriantly ," and cattle were "amply supplied" at "all seasons of the year." Consequently, the "large majority of the population on the southern portion of the [Florida] peninsula" were cattle herders, grazing their stock on the expanses of pinewoods range. (JO) SETTLEMENT OF ANTEBELLUM SOUTH FLORIDA. Cattle herders first began entering Florida in 1821, the year that the United States acquired the territory from Spain, but few settled in south Florida since this region lay within the Seminole Indian Reservation. The Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823) had reserved the interior of Florida, south of what is now Ocala, for the Seminole Indians. Yet, disputes soon arose between the reservation Seminóles and the Florida cattle herders. Seminóles accused herders of trespassing in their reservation, while herders blamed Seminóles for stealing...

This paper examines the statistical and economic significance of short-term autocorrelation in Australian equities. We document large negative first-order autocorrelation in individual stock returns. Preliminary results suggest this autocorrelation is economically significant, as two simple trading strategies based on the autocorrelation structure appear to yield large risk-adjusted returns. Further analysis, however, shows that these results are driven by the inclusion of smallcapitalisation and low-priced stocks which are vulnerable to a number of market-microstructure-related problems. After revising the dataset to mitigate these problems, little evidence of economic significance remains.

We examine the effect of cultural distance, a proxy for the lack of a minimum reservoir of trust necessary to initiate and complete trade deals, on bilateral trade flows. Employing data for 67 countries that span the years 1996–2001, we estimate a series of modified gravity specifications and find that cultural dissimilarity between nations has an economically significant and consistently negative effect on aggregate and disaggregated trade flows; however, estimated effects vary in magnitude and economic significance across measures of trade and our cohort of OECD reference countries. The consistently negative influence of cultural distance indicates that policymakers may wish to consider mechanisms that enhance the build-up of trust and commitment when seeking to facilitate the initiation and completion of international trade deals. Our findings also imply that coefficient estimates from related studies that do not account for the trade-inhibiting effect of cultural distance may be biased.

Sensitivity to scope in nonmarket valuation refers to the property that people are willing to pay more for a higher quality or quantity of a nonmarket public good. Establishing significant scope sensitivity has been an important check of validity and a point of contention for decades in stated preference research, primarily in contingent valuation. Recently, researchers have begun to differentiate between statistical and economic significance. This paper contributes to this line of research by studying the significance of scope effects in discrete choice experiments (DCEs) using the scope elasticity of willingness to pay concept. We first formalize scope elasticity in a DCE context and relate it to economic significance. Next, we review a selection of DCE studies from the environmental valuation literature and derive their implied scope elasticity estimates. We find that scope sensitivity analysis as validity diagnostics is uncommon in the DCE literature and many studies assume unitary elastic scope sensitivity by employing a restrictive functional form in estimation. When more flexible specifications are employed, the tendency is towards inelastic scope sensitivity. Then, we apply the scope elasticity concept to primary DCE data on people’s preferences for expanding the production of renewable energy in Norway. We find that the estimated scope elasticities vary between 0.13 and 0.58, depending on the attribute analyzed, model specification, geographic subsample, and the unit of measurement for a key attribute. While there is no strict and universally applicable benchmark for determining whether scope effects are economically significant, we deem these estimates to be of an adequate and plausible order of magnitude. Implications of the results for future DCE research are provided.

EXTENDED ABSTRACT One pervasive aspect of decision-making under time pressure is the salience of negative information. Research has repeatedly concluded that “the harassed decision maker” tends to weigh the possible negative consequences of his or her action heavily to the relative disregard of the possible positive rewards of those same actions. In this paper, we propose that the salience of negative information under time pressure not merely leads to risk-aversion, but that it may reverse an individual’s usual preferences. Individuals are typically either risk-seeking or risk-averse. Research outside the time pressure domain has shown that, when negative information becomes salient, risk-seeking individuals perceive little room for further gains but large likelihood of accruing losses, causing them to adopt risk-averse behaviours. In a choice between a modest-but-certain and greater-but-uncertain gamble, risk-seeking individuals tend to adopt risk-averse behaviours whereas risk-averse individuals tend to adopt risk-seeking ones. Meanwhile, for risk-averse individuals, the salience of negative information only adds to the extant negativity, causing them to adopt riskseeking behaviours with the hopes of removing the negative state. We extend these findings to the time pressure domain and suspect that time pressure would likewise be one instance where individuals would reverse their usual risk preferences to adapt to the salience of negative information. We examine this possibility in three studies. In Study 1, participants with positive (negative) affect chose a riskier (certain) lottery to a NHL hockey game when there was no time pressure, but adopted the certain (riskier) approach under time pressure. We thus demonstrated the basic outline of our hypothesis. In Study 2, we used a gambling task in which participants stated their willingness to gamble for specific dollar amounts. We also added a thought protocol to assess the participants’ emphases on positive versus negative outcomes during the gambling process. Under no time pressure, risk-seeking (risk-averse) individuals focused more on positive (negative) outcomes than negative (positive) ones. Under time pressure, however, risk-seeking (risk-averse) individuals focused more on negative (positive) outcomes than positive (negative) ones. The focus on positive versus negative information for risk-seeking and risk-averse individuals reversed under time pressure. These differences in foci on positive versus negative outcomes mediated the preference reversal. In Study 3, we explored a similar preference reversal in regulatory orientation using a consumer choice task involving toothpaste and grape juice brands as well as investment choices. Under no time pressure, promotion(prevention-) focused individuals preferred promotion(prevention-) framed and risk-seeking (risk-averse) brands and choices. Under time pressure, however, promotion(prevention-) focused individuals preferred prevention(promotion-) framed and risk-averse (risk-seeking) brands and choices. Taken together, the three studies suggest that individuals tend to reverse their preference for risky choices under time pressure compared to situations under no such constraint. It is important to note, however, that preference reversals in risky choices do not occur because risk-seeking individuals want to avoid risks or that risk-averse individuals want to take risks, but that they need to. Risk-seeking individuals adopt risk-averse behaviours when negative information becomes salient because such an approach can secure gains, in line with the goals of risk-seeking. Conversely, risk-averse individuals adopt risk-seeking behaviours when negative information becomes salient because such an approach can avoid further losses, in line with the goals of risk-aversion. Thus, preference reversals are not in innate risk preferences, but in the perception and adoption of the behaviours that best serve their objectives given the circumstance. Our findings have important marketing implications since consumers often face decision-making tasks under time pressure in everyday life.

Several authors have proposed series expansion methods to price options when the risk-neutral density is asymmetric and leptokurtic. Among these, Corrado and Su (1996) provide an intuitive pricing formula based on a Gram-Charlier Type A series expansion. However, their formula contains a typographic error that can be significant. However, their formula contains a typographic error that can be significant. Brown and Robinson (2002) correct their pricing formula and provide and example of economic significance under plausible market conditions. The purpose of this comment is to slightly modify their pricing formula to provide consistency with a martingale restriction. We also compare the sensitivities of option prices to shifts in skewness and kurtosis using parameter values from sCorrado and Su (19ssss96) and Brown and Robinson (2002), and market data from the French options market. We show that differences between the original, corrected and our modified versions of the Corrado and Su (1996) original model are minor on the whole sample, but could be economically significant in specific cases, namely for the maturity and far-from-the-money options when markets are turbulent. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)