Kim R. Sawyer

University of Melbourne | MSD · School of Historical and Philosophical Studies

The Descent of Man Kim R. Sawyer* Abstract ___________________________________________________________________________ In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin asked a question central to his inquiry into the evolution of species and the evolution of man, whether Man tends to increase at so rapid a rate as to lead to severe struggles for existence....

Nietzsche wrote Beyond Good and Evil to be free of the morality of his time. Perhaps he meant Beyond Morality and Immorality for we cannot go beyond good and evil. They are universal. Nietzsche’s thesis was will to power, the optimization of the self not restrained by conscience, detachment, compassion, or obligation to others. Where the only beli...

We are in a contest with the unknown. Einstein said we are like a child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many tongues. The child knows someone must have written the books but they don't know who. Many ask the same question, is there a reason for the ordering of the universe. This essay explores answers b...

Scapegoating is blame shifting. Scapegoats are blamed to reconcile conflict. Scapegoating is underwritten by two principles; to blame those who should not be blamed and not blame those who should be blamed. Scapegoating occurs when networks minimise their own wrongs and maximise the wrongs of network outsiders. Networks scapegoat to protect the ne...

Bureaucracy is necessary. Bureaumania is not. Bureaumania is excessive bureaucracy, the addiction to rules and conformity. Bureaumania exists everywhere. Bureaumania has become more important with political correctness. Vincent de Gournay, first identified bureaumanie(a), the problem of excessive bureaucracy, De Gournay was not alone. John Stuart M...

Do not judge, or you will be judged. Jesus gave us a standard we will never reach. We are too imperfect not to judge and not to be judged. How do we judge? Why is judgment of taste different to judgment of morality? Why is judgment of a painting different to judgment of a person? We need to understand how self-interest affects judgment. This paper...

Politicians can learn from markets. Trump is like an asset bubble driven by irrational beliefs. Bubbles always burst. When Trump came down the escalator, he launched himself as an asset in the market of politics. Trump was a new asset. Trump supporters invested in the new asset. They had an irrational belief in the asset. They had an irrational bel...

Bystanders are often caught in an ethical dilemma between being the Good Samaritan and the unresponsive bystander. They weigh the risk of intervention against the imperative to intervene. In whistleblowing the imperative is different. Whistleblowing begins with a wrong that becomes a bigger wrong of retaliation. Bystanders become the accomplices. W...

This essay concerns the deportation of Novak Djokovic from Australia in January 2022. In the Djokovic case, the Minister of Immigration had to weigh the national sovereignty and the risk to the good order against the rights of the individual and natural justice. When Novak Djokovic entered Australia, he assumed he had a valid medical exemption. I...

It was the crime of the 20th century, in full view, solved but not fully resolved. The 35th President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in front of the world. To resolve a crime that so many have not resolved, requires logic, not conjecture, and not conspiracies. There is one explanation that has never been fully explored. Chanc...

Fear of a virus is fear of an unknown risk. We do not know whether the person next to us has the virus. Fear is propagated by ignorance. Ignorance of SARS-COV-2 generated an irrational response. Minds were anchored to fear propagated by statistics on case numbers and mortality in every country, images inside intensive care units, model projections...

The right to prove one’s innocence is a fundamental right. It underscores the right to a fair trial. A trial is fair if all relevant evidence is considered, all irrelevant evidence discounted, and logic applied to the relevant evidence. A trial depends on the weight of the opposing arguments. A verdict depends on how the evidence is weighed and how...

The Contract of Existence Kim R. Sawyer* April 2021 _____________________________________________________________________ The social contract can never overwrite the contract of existence. The contract of existence is the unwritten test of who we are. Its cornerstone is natural fairness, an abstraction we will never know. We are too self-interest...

Kim Sawyer interviews physicist Paul Halpern (pictured) about his new book, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect Kim Sawyer interviews physicist Paul Halpern about his new book, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect.

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning was premised on hope. Prisoners in concentration camps lived on hope. Man as a species now needs hope. Hope rests in understanding our co-existence with other species. Hope rests in understanding what it is like to be a bat. Why bats? Bats are conservators, pest controllers, and pollinators, yet we disrespe...

The defining attribute of Abraham Lincoln is the one by which he should be most remembered. If he is to be eulogized, it should be for his compassion. Lincoln was a compassionate man who understood better than most the frailty and diversity of the human condition. He was the one who would hug those who most would not hug. He knew of death, he knew...

The objective of government is to maximise the wellbeing of the people subject to constraints. In a pandemic, constraints are greater. The objective becomes a portfolio of many objectives. Managing a pandemic is like managing a portfolio. We are so focused on the virus we do not see what we must see. A pandemic is more than the number of cases or c...

Covid-19 establishes a chain reaction that leads to explosive increases in the viral load. Asymptomatic carriers are systematically underestimated. They establish a chain reaction where they infect others, others re-infect them, they re-infect others and so on. The sequence of infection and re-infection leads to an explosion of the aggregate viral...

Covid-19 is a paradox. It is getting us to look over there when we should be looking here. The first paradox is that the drivers of the virus are those without symptoms. We need to find them. Why don't they get symptoms? Therein lies the clue to the vaccine. We need to test those who we would not usually test. They establish a chain reaction as det...

This paper constructs a new theory of social networks based on reputation. The model assumes that reputation is an asset and that individuals connect by buying options on the reputation of others. In networking, individuals construct portfolios of call options to leverage the reputations of others and put options to hedge the connections with other...

This essay concerns irrationality. Irrationality is often used pejoratively and often mischaracterised. Irrationality refers to the intuitive rather than the observable; the improbable rather than the probable; the unmeasurable rather than the measurable; the singular rather than the standardised. We need to understand the irrational rather than ov...

The reputation of an individual is the aggregate opinion of them. Reputation is usually explained by attributes of the one reputed, not the motivation of those doing the reputing. In this paper, we develop a model of reputation where the opinions are assets that leverage the reputation of others. Reputation is then determined in an imaginary market...

Coincidences are the holy grail of improbability. Coincidence is often talked about but rarely studied by statisticians. Jung defined synchronicity as meaningful coincidence. Synchronicity is not easy to rationalize. Synchronicity interfaces the improbable. A quirk of existence, it is the price we pay for being whom we are. Consider this example I...

Karma is the unknown we appeal to when a problem has not been properly arbitrated. The common refrain “there will be karma” expresses the sense of a residual unfairness, of a debt which should have been paid; the sense that the pain others impose on us will be imposed on them and… vice versa. While karma has ancient origins, it has entered modern...

An academic journal is like a financial exchange where transactions are based on a limit order book often more than two years old. It is more like a stock market of the 19th century, not an exchange of today. Of course a journal can never be exactly like a financial exchange, but can there not be more transparency and immediacy. The market of ide...

Measurement is a special type of evaluation that is more exact than either opinion or estimation. In the social sciences, in particular, most evaluations are not measures, but rather mixtures of opinion and estimation. Over-measurement represents anchoring to evaluations which are not measures. For an over-measured characteristic, single measures a...

This essay regards the soul. Ruminations of the soul began in earnest with Aristotle. Aristotle had a view of the soul that was sui generis. The soul was an abstraction with the potentiality to be realized when it inherited a body. The soul forms a partnership with the living; and the soul defines the limits of that partnership. Aristotle’s observa...

This essay considers the question how should regulators be regulated? To regulate is to observe, arbitrate and equilibrate in the public interest when that interest is not well-defined. The market for regulation is incomplete; while there is a limitless demand for regulation the supply of regulation is constrained. The response to market incomplete...

This paper develops a model of workplace bullying based on the optimizing behavior of a bully, a target and the bystanders. The model implies that workplace bullies disguise their bullying so as to seemingly comply with anti-bullying statutes. Workplace bullying is different from that of the schoolyard; it is more precise, more subtle and more stra...

Measurement is a special type of evaluation that is more exact than either opinion or estimation. In the social sciences, in particular, most evaluations are not measures, but rather mixtures of opinion and estimation. Over-measurement represents anchoring to evaluations which are not measures. For an over-measured characteristic, single measures a...

Measurement is a special type of evaluation more exact than opinion or estimation. Sawyer, Sankey and Lombardo (2013) characterized a measure as satisfying five invariance and continuity conditions. Those conditions are satisfied as the result of a process of convergence towards that measure. Measurement in the physical sciences, for example of tem...

This paper considers whistleblowing as a public-private partnership. Unlike other PPPs, the whistleblowing partnership with the government has not been not well specified. As a consequence, whistleblowers have sought to form partnerships with lawyers, journalists and politicians as a substitute for a PPP. These partnerships do not deliver the trans...

The only way to learn is to question. Jean-Paul Sartre ___________________________________________________________________________ Prelude In his 1945 lecture Existentialism is a Humanism, (Sartre 2007, 37) Sartre wrote that "Man is nothing other than his own project. […]In life, a man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which th...

Galileo suggested that what is not measurable be made measurable. It is this principle which underscores an unwritten law of both the sciences and the social sciences that it is better to measure than not to measure. But, the assumption of measurability is rarely considered. In this paper, we consider a set of invariance and continuity conditions w...

Galileo suggested that what is not measurable be made measurable. It is this principle which underscores an unwritten law of both the sciences and the social sciences that it is better to measure than not to measure. But, the assumption of measurability is rarely considered. In this paper, we consider a set of invariance and continuity conditions w...

A law is more than a mechanism for arbitrating right and wrong. A law creates a market of compliance underwritten by the disincentives for non-compliance and the incentives for compliance. Like any market, it is the efficiency of a compliance market that is most relevant to the framing of legislation. A compliance market with no prosecutions is lik...

In this paper, we consider the effect of the theoretical pricing error in the arbitrage pricing model on estimates of risk premia implied by the model. Under arbitrage pricing, the pricing error satisfies a strong bounding condition where for an infinite set of assets, the sum of squared pricing errors is bounded. We characterize the pricing error...

When universities became corporate universities, the constraints that defined universities changed. The values of the old university, of scholarship, truth and freedom, were replaced by the values of the market. Education became a product, the university a firm, and the university system an industry. This paper considers the decline in academe as u...

A simple technique is proposed for increasing the asymptotic efficiency of tests of non-nested hypotheses. The principle is to consider the asymptotic regression of one hypothesis test on another. Under certain conditions this produces a test with a smaller variance under the null hypothesis and larger expectation under the alternative, implying an...

In this paper we consider meta-economic principles, those principles which underscore the theoretical thinking of economics. Meta-economic principles are different from laws; they relate to the principles of theory construction, to the assumptions which are implicit in theory, to the constraints imposed on theories and to the analysis and scope of...

When universities became corporate universities, the constraints that defined universities changed. The values of the old university, of scholarship, truth and freedom, were replaced by the values of the market. Education became a product, the university a firm, and the university system an industry. This paper considers the decline in academe as u...

In cross-border mergers, matters of national interest often emerge. In this paper, we examine the question as to what constitutes the national interest, and whether it affects the probability of a merger receiving regulatory approval. To illustrate, we examine the takeover of the Australian resources company Western Mining Corporation.

This article examines the plight of the whistleblower using elements of organizational legitimacy theory. In recognizing the negative correlation between the actions of the organization and the whistleblower, it becomes clear that the continuing legitimacy of the organization necessitates the illegitimacy of the whistleblower. This helps explain th...

The basic assumption of the Black-Scholes option pricing is that volatility is constant over the time to maturity of the option. We consider how the estimation of volatility is affected by the time to maturity. In particular, we consider the empirical distribution of volatility as a function of the time to maturity and propose a threshold estimator...

An important question in asset markets is whether oil prices are a global factor in asset returns. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical model of stock returns which assumes that markets are integrated conditional on a set of factors, including oil. The hierarchical model is a variant of the Jorion and Schwarz model of market integration and per...

The principal result of APT is the arbitrage pricing condition that expected returns can be approximated by a linear combination of risk with strongly bounded pricing errors. Existing tests of APT either assume the pricing error to be zero or of order one in probability. Neither assumption is consistent with the theory of APT. In this paper, we cha...

This study examines the value relevance of recognised and disclosed revaluations of land and buildings for a large sample of Australian firms from 1993 through 1997. In contrast to prior research, we control for risk and cyclical effects and find no difference between recognised and disclosed revaluations, using yearly-cross-sectional and pooled re...

Every life is a test but, in the workplace, few are tested more than whistleblowers. The act of whistleblowing is a comprehensive test of the whistleblower’s values, loyalties and above all their self-worth. The whistleblower who survives, survives these tests. This paper examines the test that is whistleblowing. In my experience, whistleblowing c...

I have often reflected on this comment, in part because I am asked to compare the whistleblowing experience in the United States with that in Australia. By implication, I am being asked whether Australia has comparable legislation, whether the nature of whistleblowing problems is the same, and whether Australian whistleblowers are equally protected...

This paper considers the role of valuation in portfolio theory. In particular, we examine value-price ratios and their dynamic properties. Five valuation principles are proposed, namely the separability of prices and valuations, the asymptotic convergence of value-price ratios, the finite horizon convergence of value-price ratios, the predictabilit...

This study represents an empirical analysis of free trading options (FTOs), options that arise due to the arrival of adverse information. The analysis purports to measure three characteristics of these options: (i) the probability of the option ending in-the-money as a consequence of adverse information arrival, (ii) the value of the free trading o...

There have been many theoretical representations of learning in financial markets, but few empirical realizations. In this paper, we establish an empirical learning framework which emphasizes the ordering of history, the similarity of events, the importance of memory and the importance of parameter variation in learning. The methodology proposed tr...

We propose a theory of value relevance based on a theory of information, with foundations in the efficient markets hypothesis. Like the EMH, we consider a theory of heterogeneous information, and like the EMH, testing for value relevance becomes a joint test of market efficiency, the process of price determination and value relevance. In assuming h...

This paper reexamines the event study methodology in finance. We consider a formal specification of an event study in terms of a system of abnormal returns and, in particular, emphasise the possible limitations of using a methodology when misspecification may be present. In the first section of the paper, the theory of the event study is reviewed,...

This paper considers the relevance of the Duhem-Quine thesis in economics. In the introductory discussion which follows, the meaning of the thesis and a brief history of its development are detailed. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the effects of the thesis in four specific and diverse theories in economics, and to illustrate the dependence...

This chapter focuses on the continuous time financial models. There are two principal justifications for the use of continuous time formulations in finance, the first theoretical and the second due to the richness of stochastic calculus. The convergence of discrete time asset models to a limiting form continuous time model involves the convergence...

The concept of multiple comparisons between a set of competing hypotheses is examined. A statistic is developed for testing a maintained hypothesis against a series of separate alternatives. This statistic is an extension of the binary Cox test.

This note shows that the significance level and power of the F-test for a linear hypothesis is affected by non-linearity, but not systematically.

An information criterion is developed for the test of a composite null hypothesis against a composite separate alternative. The intuitive and interpretative appeal of the criterion is emphasized and comparisons with the Cox test invoked.

This thesis is concerned with the theory of econometric model selection, an area of fundamental importance in econometrics. The two themes of the document are the approach to developing model selection criteria and the processes for criteria evaluation. Each chapter contains elements of them both. In Chapter 1, principles of model selection are est...

Thesis (doctoral)--Australian National University, 1980.