Jan 29

Written by: Talc Admin
29/01/2010 1:06 PM

Come along to The Industrial Relations Research Centre's Seminar on Truckers, Turnover and Accidents: Links to Cognitive Skills, Economic Preferences and Strategic Behaviour.

Presenters: Associate Professor Stephen Burks and Professor Jon Anderson, University of Minnesota, Morris
Location: The University of New South Wales Law School Room 163 (Building F8)
Map: http://www.facilities.unsw.edu.au/Maps/pdf/kensington.pdf
Tuesday February 16th  1:00pm – 2:00 pm, followed by questions & discussion
Abstract:  This presentation reports on two sets of related findings from a major research project:

a)    1,065 trainee truckers provided three measures of cognitive skill and took part in several economic experiments. They were then followed through the completion of training and on the job (for up to two years) to see when they exited, and why.  Controlling for demographics and personality, a strong and significant relationship was found between an individual’s cognitive skills (CS) and economic preferences (short-run and long-run patience and calculated risk-taking); forecasting others’ behavior; planning; and perseverance on the job. This is a low-paid piece rate job requiring the ability to plan one’s efforts (i.e. to “work smart” not just hard), and the role of basic cognitive skills here suggests their broader importance for success at low education jobs involving significant self management.

b)    In the same subject pool, intake information on the 950 drivers who completed training was merged with payroll data to measure the miles and trip segments per week, the type of work (e.g. single customer, or running the system), and accidents, categorized by severity (765 subjects with full data). Controlling for risk exposure and demographics, initial results suggest that cognitive skills and personality factors are the strongest predictors of accident occurrence among the individual characteristics measured.
Stephen Burks is Associate Professor of Economics and Management at the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM). With a PhD in economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he does research in experimental and behavioral personnel economics, and the economics of the U.S. trucking industry. He is a member of the Committee on Trucking Industry Research at the Transportation Research Board (a division of the National Research Councils of the U.S.)  He has published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA), the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Research in Experimental Economics, and Research in Transportation Economics. He is the organizer of the Truckers & Turnover Project, a multi-year study conducted with a large U.S. trucking company to identify the factors that predict productivity, retention, and other on-the-job outcomes for truckers, that is based at UMM.

Jon Anderson is Professor of Statistics at the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM).  His PhD is in Biostatistics from the University of Minnesota. He is a co-investigator on the Truckers & Turnover Project, and has published in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the JSM Proceedings, the Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, Public Health Nursing, and Minnesota Medicine, among other places, before getting interested in truckers. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Finance and Applied Statistics, Australian National University, in 2005-06.

You are also invited to join Prof Burks and Prof Anderson for drinks in the ASB Lounge, 6th floor, Western Lobby Australian School of Business (Building E12) 4.00 -5.30 Tuesday 16 Feb
RSVP by Friday 12 Feb essential:  a.junor@unsw.edu.au
 

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