Decision Analysis

We retrospectively explore the effectiveness of various probabilistic opinion pools against a set of insider threat detection modeling data from a recently completed, multiyear, sponsored research effort. We explored four opinion pools: the linear opinion pool (likely the most popular), the beta-transformed linear opinion pool, the geometric opinion pool, and a multiplicative method based on odds called Bordley’s formula. The data for our study came from our recent work in the inference of insider threats for our research sponsor. In this work, we created a multimodeling inference enterprise modeling (MIEM) process to either predict threats within a population or, given the threats, predict how well the enterprise system can detect those threats. As part of larger research challenges designed by the research sponsor, we applied the MIEM process quarterly to respond to a sequence of varying challenge problems (CPs). Via MIEM, we developed multiple, independent computation forecast models. These models generated certainty intervals to answer CP questions. These intervals were fused into a single interval for each question via an expert panel prior to submission. The sponsors scored the responses against ground truth. In this paper, we (a) ask which pooling functions work best on these data and consider why, and (b) compare this performance to the actual submissions to determine if one of the pooling functions performed better than our judgment-based fusion.

Jared A. Beekman

Ronald F. A. Woodaman

Dennis M. Buede

A Review of Probabilistic Opinion Pooling Algorithms with Application to Insider Threat Detection

概率意见池算法综述及其在内幕威胁检测中的应用

Vicki Bier

Call for Papers on the Implications of Advances in Artificial Intelligence for Decision Analysis

征稿：人工智能进展对决策分析的影响

This study distinguishes enterprises into high- and low-type categories based on enterprise value and cost efficiency, examining their strategic behaviors in three investment timing games: move simultaneously, the high-type enterprise moves first, and the low-type enterprise moves first. By comparing the three games, we find that both types of enterprises would always exert more effort in the sequential game than in the simultaneous game, and the later-move advantage makes both types of enterprises prefer to become the follower in the game. We also find that the enhanced cost efficiency advantage or enterprise value gap possessed by the high-type enterprise would widen the effort gap between the two types of enterprises, and enhance the low-type enterprise’s incentive to be the follower. Moreover, the existence of system vulnerability not only causes both types of enterprises to reduce their security effort that generates free-riding behaviors but also can first discourage and then encourage enterprises from moving in advance. We further propose a liability-based mechanism to tackle the free-riding problem. We reveal an exact optimal liability coefficient, whether in the simultaneous or sequential game and find that the high-type enterprise should undertake more compensation when its dominant position becomes more obvious and the low-type enterprise could therefore undertake decreased liability. Last, we extend the model to multiple enterprises and show that the results are robust. Funding: This work was supported by the Shanghai Science and Technology Development Foundation [Grant 24692107700]; the Humanities and Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China [Grant 23YJA630100]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities; DHU Distinguished Young Professor Program; and the Shanghai Social Science Foundation [Grant 2022ZGL009]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2024.0190 .

Hui Zhao

Yong Wu

Zhijie Jin

Decisions Making in Information Security Investments: Impact of System Vulnerability and Investment Timing on Resource-Sharing Platforms

信息安全投资决策：系统漏洞与投资时机对资源共享平台的影响

The ecological restoration of abandoned mines poses a significant challenge within China’s broader efforts toward the protection and restoration of the nation’s ecosystems. Based on the ecology-oriented development (EOD) model, a differential game framework for the ecological restoration of abandoned mines was constructed in this study, involving both government and corporate entities as players. Our analysis focused on various factors, including investment levels in ecological restoration quality, the quality of ecological restoration itself, investment levels in environmentally sensitive industry development, the quality of environmentally sensitive industries, environmentally sensitive product pricing strategies, and profit dynamics for both players across four distinct modes. Our findings reveal several key insights. First, extending the government’s concession period incentivizes enterprises to increase investment in both the quality of ecological restoration of abandoned mines and the development of environmentally sensitive industries. Second, the government should prefer the cooperative mode to introduce social capital for the ecology-oriented development of abandoned mines. Third, in noncooperative mode, for technology-intensive industries, the government’s industrial support policy is more mutually beneficial; conversely, for labor-intensive industries, the ecological restoration compensation policy yields higher mutual gains. Lastly, differentiated incentive policies implemented by the government across various modes prompt the input of enterprises in ecological restoration quality and environmentally sensitive industry development. Based on these findings, we offer specific policy recommendations to guide governmental efforts in promoting EOD for the ecological restoration of abandoned mines. Funding: This work was supported by the Sichuan Office of Philosophy and Social Science [Grant SC22C004] and the National Social Science Fund of China [Grant 22XKS015].

Ning Wang

Deqing Tan

Research on Ecological Restoration Strategies for Abandoned Mines Based on Ecology-Oriented Development

基于生态导向发展的废弃矿山生态修复策略研究

Frugal materialism is a tendency of consumer demand to become more elastic in product durability in response to a tightening budget constraint. This paper proposes a value function-based model of frugal materialism and establishes a close theoretical link between frugal materialism and the slope of value satiation as defined in the decision analytic literature; for both their absolute and relative versions, frugal materialism and increasing value satiation are nearly equivalent to each other. Only some shapes of the value function are thus compatible with frugal materialism, and the shape restrictions involve concepts familiar from models of decision making under risk, even though the proposed model of frugal materialism does not involve any risk. Under the additional assumption of relative risk neutrality, the demand for risky assets of a frugally materialistic consumer should exhibit well-known behavioral patterns associated with increasing risk aversion, and there is only a narrow possibility for frugal materialism to coexist with precautionary saving behavior.

Robert Zeithammer

Satiation-Based Theory of Frugal Materialism

基于满足感的节俭物质主义理论

Long-term decisions, such as decisions about carbon abatement, are usually based on the implausible assumption of constant social preference. This paper focuses on a specific case of market and nonmarket goods, and it investigates the optimal climate policy when social preference for them is also changed by climate policy in a seminal climate-economy model: the Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy (DICE) model with a single objective to maximize market goods consumption. We amend DICE to study an optimization problem that trades off the values of market and nonmarket goods, considering endogenous preferences. The relative price of non-market goods grows over time because of increases in both relative scarcity and the appreciation that represents the preference of it. As nonmarket goods are increasingly valuable relative to market ones, climate damages on nonmarket goods are increasingly expensive. The social cost of carbon, which aggregated climate impact on both goods, is consequently higher. Because abatement decision affects the valuation of nonmarket goods in the utility function, unlike previous climate-economy models, we solve the model iteratively by taking the obtained abatement rates from the last run as inputs in the current run. The results in baseline calibration advocate a more stringent climate policy, where endogenous social preference to climate policy raises the social cost of carbon further by roughly 12%–18% this century. Moreover, neglecting changing social preference leads to an underestimate of nonmarket goods damages by 15%. Climate policy is self-reinforced if it favors the more expensive consumption good. The proposed method can be applied to other long-term problems with endogenous preferences. Funding: H. Liao appreciates the funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71925008, 72293603, and 72488101].

Abbreviation	Decis. Anal.
Journal Impact	2.36
Quartiles(Global)	MANAGEMENT(Q3)

ISSN	1545-8490, 1545-8504
h-index	30

Publication Information	Publisher: INFORMS Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2010，Proportion of original research papers: 94.44%，Self Citation Rate:8.00%， Gold OA Rate: 0.00%

Decision Analysis

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A Review of Probabilistic Opinion Pooling Algorithms with Application to Insider Threat Detection

Call for Papers on the Implications of Advances in Artificial Intelligence for Decision Analysis

Decisions Making in Information Security Investments: Impact of System Vulnerability and Investment Timing on Resource-Sharing Platforms

Research on Ecological Restoration Strategies for Abandoned Mines Based on Ecology-Oriented Development

Satiation-Based Theory of Frugal Materialism

Call for Papers on the Implications of Advances in Artificial Intelligence for Decision Analysis

Decisions Making in Information Security Investments: Impact of System Vulnerability and Investment Timing on Resource-Sharing Platforms

Satiation-Based Theory of Frugal Materialism

Research on Ecological Restoration Strategies for Abandoned Mines Based on Ecology-Oriented Development

Endogenous Preference for Nonmarket Goods in Carbon Abatement Decisions