Optimal provisioning theory and regulatory distortions

Firms must often invest in large-scale capacity expansions in order to service their expectation of future demand. This is known as provisioning. This paper introduces and examines issues and contributions in optimal provisioning theory. It discusses some regulatory distortions and suggests how an awareness of optimal provisioning can improve regulatory outcomes.

Analysis of cognitive distortions in offenders and non-offenders

This thesis compares the cognitive distortions of adolescent sexual offenders, violent offenders and non-offenders. Sexual offenders demonstrated the most distorted thinking patterns, and were the most likely to exhibit a self-centred tendency and to blame others. These findings have numerous implications for the prevention and treatment of sexual offending by adolescents.

Cognitive distortions in child molesters : theoretical and research developments over the past two decades

Cognitive distortions have become an important focus for professionals working with child molesters since the early 1980s. In this paper, we describe and discuss both the theoretical and methodological developments of child molester's cognitive distortions that have evolved over the past two decades. We conclude that although theory and research development has been a little slow in this topic, several interesting theoretical and methodological developments have been made in recent years. We describe how we believe such developments will further increase the conceptual clarity of cognitive distortions and provide some suggestions for other future developments in this field.

Identification of five fundamental implicit theories underlying cognitive distortions in child abusers : a preliminary study

Qualitative analysis of interviews with 22 child abusers found strong evidence for Ward and Keenan's (1999) proposal that there are five implicit theories in child abusers that account for the majority of their cognitive distortions/thinking errors. These implicit theories are: Child as a sexual being where children are perceived as being able to and wanting to engage in sexual activity with adults and also are not be harmed by such sexual contact; Nature of harm where the offender perceives that sexual activity does not cause harm (and may in fact be beneficial) to the child; Entitlement where the child abuser perceives that he is superior and more important than others: and hence is able to have sex with whoever, and whenever, he wants; Dangerous world where the offender perceives that that others are abusive and rejecting and he must fight to regain control; and Uncontrollable where the offender perceives the world as uncontrollable and hence he believes that circumstances are outside of his control. There was no evidence for any other type of implicit theory. Results of the study also indicated that there was a significant difference in terms of the endorsement of the Dangerous world implicit theory between participants reporting a history of child sexual abuse and those who did not. Offenders against male victims were significantly more likely to endorse the Child as a sexual being and Dangerous world implicit theories compared to men who had offended against female children.

Cognitive distortions in child sex offenders : an overview theory, research, and practice

A great deal of clinical and research attention has been paid to understanding and explaining child sex offenders’ social cognition. Cognitive distortions have been implicated as a core feature of child sex offenders’ offense supportive cognition. The primary aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the phenomenon of cognitive distortions as currently understood with respect to child sex offenders: it reviews the theoretical and research literature and highlights the implications for clinical practice.

The extended mind theory of cognitive distortions in sex offenders

An innovative theory of the nature of cognition, the extended mind theory (EMT), has emerged recently in the cognitive science literature. According to the EMT, the boundaries of the mind extend beyond the boundaries of skull and skin, into the world beyond. My aim in this paper is to consider the practical implications of the EMT for therapists working with sex offenders' cognitive distortions. First, I provide an overview of the key assumptions of EMT. Secondly, I draw out the major implications of this novel theory of cognition for the assessment and treatment of cognitive distortions in sex offenders. Thirdly, to make the analysis more concrete, I discuss briefly how the treatment module of cognitive restructuring could proceed according to the EMT.

Extending the mind into the world : a new theory of cognitive distortions in sex offenders

A recent trend in cognitive science and neuroscience has been the stress on the importance of human embodiment for cognitive development and the way external factors can be viewed as part of human beings' extended cognitive system (Clark, 2008; Johnson, 2007). Our aim in this paper is to present the extended mind theory (EMT) and outline its implications for understanding and treating cognitive distortions in sex offenders. We will first briefly examine the two most prominent theories of cognitive distortions in the sexual offending arena, Abel et al.'s (1984) post offense theory and Ward's (2000) implicit theory model. We will then examine their limitations and provide an overview of the EMT. Finally, we will apply the EMT to the sexual offending area and demonstrate the advantages of this novel conception of cognition.

Beliefs, values, and action : the judgment model of cognitive distortions in sexual offenders

In this paper, we present the Judgment Model of Cognitive Distortions (JMCD), a new model of cognitive distortions that spans multiple levels of analysis and contains different types of judgments. This model proposes that cognitive distortions tend to cluster together in what we have termed Thematic Networks (TN): judgments about beliefs, values, and actions. We argue that the three sets of judgments cover all types of cognitive distortions apparent in sexual offenders including those revolving around content (i.e., asserting characteristics to people, the offender, the world) and cognitive operations (i.e., denial, minimization, rationalizations). Following a description of the JMCD, we demonstrate how it can account for the cognitive schemata identified in sexual offenders by researchers and clinicians. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the clinical and research implications of the JMCD.

Market failure, policy failure and other distortions in chronic disease markets

Background: The increasing prevalence of chronic disease represents a significant burden on most health systems. This paper explores the market failures and policy failures that exist in the management of chronic diseases.
Discussion: There are many sources of market failure in health care that undermine the efficiency of chronic disease management. These include incomplete information as well as information asymmetry between providers and consumers, the effect of externalities on consumer behaviour, and the divergence between social and private time preference rates. This has seen government and policy interventions to address both market failures and distributional issues resulting from the inability of private markets to reach an efficient and equitable distribution of resources. However, these have introduced a series of policy failures such as distorted re-imbursement arrangements across modalities and delivery settings.
Summary: The paper concludes that market failure resulting from a preference of individuals for 'immediate gratification' in the form of health care and disease management, rather than preventative services, where the benefits are delayed, has a major impact on achieving an efficient allocation of resources in markets for the management of chronic diseases. This distortion is compounded by government health policy that tends to favour medical and pharmaceutical interventions further contributing to distortions in the allocation of resources and inefficiencies in the management of chronic disease.

Reducing the size distortions of the panel LM test for cointegration

This paper proposes a simple procedure to reduce the size distortions of the panel LM test for cointegration. The new procedure is based on first splitting the sample into even and odd numbered observations, and to employ the panel LM test to each subsample. The two tests are then combined using the Bonferroni principle as suggested by Choi [Choi, I., 2004, Improving the empirical size of the KPSS Test of stationarity, unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology]. The Monte Carlo evidence suggests that this procedure can lead to substantial reduction in size distortions when the equilibrium errors are autoregressive. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.