We consider the holder of an individual tontine retirement account, with maximum and minimum withdrawal amounts (per year) specified. The tontine account holder initiates the account at age 65 and earns mortality credits while alive, but forfeits all wealth in the account upon death. The holder wants to maximize total withdrawals and minimize expected shortfall at the end of the retirement horizon of 30 years (i.e., it is assumed that the holder survives to age 95). The holder controls the amount withdrawn each year and the fraction of the retirement portfolio invested in stocks and bonds. The optimal controls are determined based on a parametric model fitted to almost a century of market data. The optimal control algorithm is based on dynamic programming and the solution of a partial integro differential equation (PIDE) using Fourier methods. The optimal strategy (based on the parametric model) is tested out of sample using stationary block bootstrap resampling of the historical data. In terms of an expected total withdrawal, expected shortfall (EW-ES) efficient frontier, the tontine overlay dramatically outperforms an optimal strategy (without the tontine overlay), which in turn outperforms a constant weight strategy with withdrawals based on the ubiquitous four per cent rule.

This paper proposes a framework for comprehensive, collaborative, and community-based care (C4) for accessible mental health services in low-resource settings. Because mental health conditions have many causes, this framework includes social, public health, wellness and clinical services. It accommodates integration of stand-alone mental health programs with health and non-health community-based services. It addresses gaps in previous models including lack of community-based psychotherapeutic and social services, difficulty in addressing comorbidity of mental and physical conditions, and how workers interact with respect to referral and coordination of care. The framework is based on task-shifting of services to non-specialized workers. While the framework draws on the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Program and other global mental health models, there are important differences. The C4 Framework delineates types of workers based on their skills. Separate workers focus on: basic psychoeducation and information sharing; community-level, evidence-based psychotherapeutic counseling; and primary medical care and more advanced, specialized mental health services for more severe or complex cases. This paper is intended for individuals, organizations and governments interested in implementing mental health services. The primary aim is to provide a framework for the provision of widely accessible mental health care and services.

Several scholars have recognized the limitations of theories of moral reasoning in explaining moral behavior. They have argued that moral behavior may also be influenced by moral identity, or how central morality is to one’s sense of self. This idea has been supported by findings that people who exemplify moral behavior tend to place more importance on moral traits when defining their self-concepts (Colby & Damon, 1995). This paper takes the next step of examining individual variation in a construct highly associated with immoral behavior — psychopathy. In Study 1, we test the hypothesis that individuals with a greater degree of psychopathic traits have a weaker moral identity. Within a large online sample, we found that individuals who scored higher on a measure of psychopathic traits were less likely to base their self-concepts on moral traits. In Study 2, we test whether this reduced sense of moral identity can be attributed to differences in moral judgment, which is another factor that could influence immoral behavior. Our results indicated that the reduced sense of moral identity among more psychopathic individuals was independent of variation in moral judgment. These results suggest that individuals with psychopathic traits may display immoral behavior partially because they do not construe their personal identities in moral terms.

We extend the Annually Recalculated Virtual Annuity (ARVA) spending rule for retirement savings decumulation (Waring and Siegel (2015) Financial Analysts Journal, 71(1), 91–107) to include a cap and a floor on withdrawals. With a minimum withdrawal constraint, the ARVA strategy runs the risk of depleting the investment portfolio. We determine the dynamic asset allocation strategy which maximizes a weighted combination of expected total withdrawals (EW) and expected shortfall (ES), defined as the average of the worst 5% of the outcomes of real terminal wealth. We compare the performance of our dynamic strategy to simpler alternatives which maintain constant asset allocation weights over time accompanied by either our same modified ARVA spending rule or withdrawals that are constant over time in real terms. Tests are carried out using both a parametric model of historical asset returns as well as bootstrap resampling of historical data. Consistent with previous literature that has used different measures of reward and risk than EW and ES, we find that allowing some variability in withdrawals leads to large improvements in efficiency. However, unlike the prior literature, we also demonstrate that further significant enhancements are possible through incorporating a dynamic asset allocation strategy rather than simply keeping asset allocation weights constant throughout retirement.

How should we undertand the role of norms – especially epistemic norms – governing assertive speech acts? Mitchell Green (2009) has argued that these norms play the role of handicaps in the technical sense from the animal signals literature. As handicaps, they then play a large role in explaining the reliability – and so the stability (the continued prevalence) – of assertive speech acts. But though norms of assertion conceived of as social norms do indeed play this stabilizing role, these norms are best understood as deterrents and not as handicaps. This paper explains the stability problem for the maintenance of animal signals, and so human communication; the mechanics of the handicap principle; the role of deterrents and punishments as an alternative mechanism; and the role of social norms governing assertion for the case of human communication.

We determine the optimal asset allocation to bonds and stocks using an annually recalculated virtual annuity (ARVA) spending rule for DC pension plan decumulation. Our objective function minimizes downside withdrawal variability for a given fixed value of total expected withdrawals. The optimal asset allocation is found using optimal stochastic control methods. We formulate the strategy as a solution to a Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) Partial Integro Differential Equation (PIDE). We impose realistic constraints on the controls (no-shorting, no-leverage, discrete rebalancing) and solve the HJB PIDEs numerically. Compared to a fixed-weight strategy which has the same expected total withdrawals, the optimal strategy has a much smaller average allocation to stocks and tends to de-risk rapidly over time. This conclusion holds in the case of a parametric model based on historical data and also in a bootstrapped market based on the historical data.

Does epistemic justification aim at truth? The vast majority of epistemologists instinctively answer ‘Yes’; it's the textbook response. Joseph Cruz and John Pollock surprisingly say no. In ‘The Chimerical Appeal of Epistemic Externalism’ they argue that justification bears no interesting connection to truth; justification does not even aim at truth. ‘Truth is not a very interesting part of our best understanding’ of justification (C&P 2004, 137); it has no ‘connection to the truth.’ A ‘truth-aimed … epistemology is not entitled to carry the day’ (C&P 2004, 138, emphasis added).

Pollock and Cruz's argument for this surprising conclusion is of general interest for it is ‘out of step with a very common view on the part of epistemologists, both internalist and externalist alike’ (C&P 2004, 136), as nearly all ‘epistemologists have claimed that truth and falsity play a crucial role in distinguishing between justified and unjustified beliefs [for] believing truths is the ultimate aim of human rational cognition’ (C&P 2004, 125; cf. Audi 1988).

We compared systematic and random survey techniques to estimate breeding population sizes of burrow-nesting petrel species on Marion Island. White-chinned (Procellaria aequinoctialis) and blue (Halobaena caerulea) petrel population sizes were estimated in systematic surveys (which attempt to count every colony) in 2009 and 2012, respectively. In 2015, we counted burrows of white-chinned, blue and great-winged (Pterodroma macroptera) petrels within 52 randomized strip transects (25 m wide, total 144 km). Burrow densities were extrapolated by Geographic Information System-derived habitat attributes (geology, vegetation, slope, elevation, aspect) to generate island-wide burrow estimates. Great-winged petrel burrows were found singly or in small groups at low densities (2 burrows ha−1); white-chinned petrel burrows were in loose clusters at moderate densities (3 burrows ha−1); and blue petrel burrows were in tight clusters at high densities (13 burrows ha−1). The random survey estimated 58% more white-chinned petrels but 42% fewer blue petrels than the systematic surveys. The results suggest that random transects are best suited for species that are widely distributed at low densities, but become increasingly poor for estimating population sizes of species with clustered distributions. Repeated fixed transects provide a robust way to monitor changes in colony density and area, but might fail to detect the formation/disappearance of new colonies.