Poke And Delayed Drink Intertemporal Choice Task(POKE-ADDICT):An open-source behavioral apparatus for intertemporal choice testing in rodents

Advancements in neuroscience research present opportunities and challenges,requiring substantial resources and funding.To address this,we describe here“Poke And Delayed Drink Intertemporal Choice Task(POKE-ADDICT)”,an open-source,versatile,and cost-effective apparatus for intertemporal choice testing in rodents.This allows quantification of delay discounting(DD),a cross-species phenomenon observed in decision making which provides valuable insights into higher-order cognitive functioning.In DD,the subjective value of a delayed reward is reduced as a function of the delay for its receipt.Using our apparatus,we implemented an effective intertemporal choice paradigm for the quantification of DD based on an adjusting delayed amount(ADA)algorithm using mango juice as a reward.Our paradigm requires limited training,a few 3D-printed parts and inexpensive electrical components,including a Raspberry Pi control unit.Furthermore,it is compatible with several in vivo procedures and the use of nose pokes instead of levers allows for faster task learning.Besides the main application described here,the apparatus can be further extended to implement other behavioral tests and protocols,including standard operant conditioning.In conclusion,we describe a versatile and cost-effective design based on Raspberry Pi that can support research in animal behavior,decision making and,more specifically,delay discounting.

A mini-review on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected intertemporal choice

The coronavirus disease(COVID-19)has extremely harmful effects on individual lifestyles,and at present,people must make financial or survival decisions under the profound changes frequently.Although it has been reported that COVID-19 changed decision-making patterns,the underlying mechanisms remained unclear.This mini-review focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on in-tertemporal choice,and potential psychological,biological,and social factors that mediate this relationship.A search of the Web of Science electronic database yielded 23 studies.The results showed that under the COVID-19 pandemic,people tended to choose immediate and smaller rewards,and became less patient.In particular,people with negative emotions,in a worse condition of physical health,or who did not comply with their government restriction rules tended to become more"short-sighted"in behavioral terms.Future studies should examine more longitudinal and cross-cultural research to give a broad view about the decision-making change under the COVID-19 pandemic.

Separate Neural Networks for Gains and Losses in Intertemporal Choice

An important and unresolved question is how human brain regions process information and interact with each other in intertemporal choice related to gains and losses. Using psychophysiological interaction and dynamic causal modeling analyses, we investigated the functional interactions between regions involved in the decision- making process while participants performed temporal discounting tasks in both the gains and losses domains. We found two distinct intrinsic valuation systems underlying temporal discounting in the gains and losses domains： gains were specifically evaluated in the medial regions, including the medial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices, and losses were evaluated in the lateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In addition, immediate reward or pun- ishment was found to modulate the functional interactions between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and distinct regions in both the gains and losses domains： in the gains domain, the mesolimbic regions; in the losses domain, the medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and insula. These findings suggest that intertemporal choice of gains and losses might involve distinct valuation systems, and more importantly, separate neural interactions may implement the intertemporal choices of gains and losses. These findings may provide a new biological perspective for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying intertemporal choice of gains and losses.

Educational divergence among urban residents and migrant workers: Evidence from China

While the Harris-Todaro model is a traditional approach used in researching the urban-rural dichotomy,it fails to explain families’goals to maximize their current utility in terms of intertemporal decision-making con‐ditions.To fill this gap,in this paper,an urban-rural dichotomy model involving labor migration and educa‐tion is established,in which it is assumed that family utility derives from consumption and children’s educa‐tional achievement.The steady-state path derived through the Bellman equation suggests that increasing edu‐cational investment and family education intensity leads to a significant urban-rural difference in children’s educational achievement.Compared with the traditional Harris-Todaro model,the transversality condition is loosened in this model,while the unavailability of loans constrains migrant families.Four hypotheses are made and tested using an empirical study.An ordinary least squares regression was used in the analysis,but due to the endogeneity caused by missing variables,the instrumental variable method and two-stage least squares regression were used.The results demonstrate that the household registration system can explain 44.5%of the educational achievement difference,and the initial difference is inflated 4.73 times after nine years of compulsory education.This divergence could increase the differences caused by household registra‐tion status,resulting in larger income gaps and intergenerational heredity of identities.

Multidimensional Poverty and Poverty Reduction Policies in Rural China during 1995-2013

Using the multidimensional poverty index(MPI), this paper measures the intertemporal change in poverty in China's rural areas during 1995-2013, decomposes major poverty reduction factors, and creates a correlation between poverty reduction factors and national pro-farmer and poverty reduction policies. Our findings suggest that multidimensional poverty has been greatly alleviated in rural China on all fronts beyond the income dimension. Specifically, the burden of out-of-pocket medical expenses contributed the most to the overall poverty of farmers in the 1990s; this gap was subsequently mitigated by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Insurance System. Lack of economic empowerment-the second most prominent manifestation of poverty two decades ago-has been alleviated with public welfare improvements. In the present stage, health and healthcare are the primary difficulties facing poor farmers multidimensionally. Sub-groups such as elders,those less educated and those living in western China or in poor counties suffer from a high degree of poverty. This implies that multidimensional poverty is concentrated among the underprivileged groups and in less developed regions, whom should be policy priorities.Robustness tests suggest that the paper's conclusion still holds after changing the proxy variables of the subdimensions, revising weights or removing some dimensions.

Analysis of the Impact of Interest Rate Changes on Chinese Consumer Behavior

In 2015,the Central Bank cut interest rates six times in a row.There are two main purposes.The first is to reduce the interest burden on corporate loans,and stimulate corporate investment.The second is to reduce interest income on residential deposits,and stimulate residents to increase current consumption.However,many empirical data prove that although the effect of interest rate decline on stimulating corporate investment is more obvious,the effect of stimulating residents to increase current consumption is not obvious,and household savings continue to grow rapidly instead.This shows that the main factor affecting the current consumption of residents is no longer the bank's deposit interest rate,but the irreplaceability of future consumer goods for current consumer goods,income restrictions and other economic factors that can affect cross-time consumption.Based on the theory of intertemporal utility maximization,this paper analyzes the impact of the rate change on China's residents' consumption,looks for the reasons why residents' consumption is not sensitive to changes in the rate,and puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

Economic Analysis of CO2 Emission Abatement Applying a Dynamic CGE Model with Endogenous Technological Change： Impacts of the Time Horizon

We evaluate economic and environmental impacts of climate change mitigation in a country scale considering various time horizons in the analysis applying a single-country dynamic computable general equilibrium model with endogenous technological change. Although there is a possibility that Gross Domestic Product （GDP） becomes larger for the abatement cases than the baseline case in the earlier years, it tends to be lower than that in the later years. The longer the time horizon and/or the more severe the abatement, the larger the negative impacts will be. When subsidizing R＆D investment, increase in GDP compared to the baseline case is realized in the middle of the time horizon, and the larger increase tends to be observed for the longer-term cases. These results would be due to technological change induced by the subsidies and emission abatement. Environmental indicators are also improved. We showed that the results were influenced by the target time horizon when using an intertemporal dynamic model.

Impact of interest rate changes on Chinese consumer behavior

In 2015, The Central Bank cut interest rates six times in a row. There are two main purposes: one is to reduce the interest burden on corporate loans, and stimulate corporate investment. Second, to reduce interest income on residential deposits, and stimulate residents to increase current consumption. However, many empirical data prove that although the effect of interest rate decline on stimulating corporate investment is more obvious, the effect of stimulating residents to increase current consumption is not obvious, and household savings continue to grow rapidly. This shows that the main factor affecting the current consumption of residents is no longer the bank's deposit interest rate, but the irreplaceability of future consumer goods for current consumer goods, income restrictions and other economic factors that can affect cross-time consumption. This paper is based on the theory of intertemporal utility maximization. The empirical analysis of the impact of the rate change on China's residents' consumption, looking for the reasons why residents' consumption is not sensitive to changes in the rate, and put forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.

A Study of the Dynamic Mechanisms and Effects of Allocating Emissions Permits under Endogenous Growth

The allocation of carbon emissions permits is a major component of the design of carbon trading schemes. The choice of allocation mechanisms can influence the long-term growth path, which in turn affects the effectiveness of the emissions reduction policy. The findings of this article indicate that while a static allocation mechanism can maximize current yields, it leads to a slowdown in output growth under endogenous economic growth. To optimize intertemporal economic output, the allocation of carbon emissions will need to be dynamically adjusted. In the absence of complete information, an output-oriented adjustment to the allocation of emissions rights in different periods can guide market trading so that it approaches a long-term optimal growth path.

Selling to strategic customers with cost uncertainty

Production cost can be influenced by previous sales in an uncertain way.In reality,production cost may decrease in the number of initial buyers due to the learning effect,or increase in the number of initial buyers due to the quality-improving pressure from negative comments of unhappy users.Taking this uncertainty into account,this paper studies the optimal intertemporal pricing strategies of a firm when selling to strategic customers in two periods where production cost in the second period randomly changes with the number of buyers in the first period.Our results suggest how firms should adjust their optimal pricing strategies under different market circumstances.