On the surge of altruism

To date, many arguments to explain altruistic behavior were based on `kin selection'. This note shows that evolution can sustain altruism even if the players are not necessarily genetically linked. Depending on the payoff parameters in a prisoner's dilemma game, there can be four distinct types of equilibria, for each of them the proportion of altruists in the population is described. The author is grateful to an anonymous referee for valuable comments. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Striving for Prestige in Samoa: A Comparison of Men,Women, and Fa’afafine

ABSTRACT

In numerous non-Western cultures around the world, a small but meaningful proportion of individuals occupy alternative gender categories beyond the man/woman binary. A substantial body of past research has shown that feminine, same-sex attracted males in Samoa—a nonbinary gender known as fa’afafine—are more altruistic toward their nieces and nephews than are Samoan men and women. The present study examined the degree to which these kin-directed altruistic tendencies of fa’afafine are motivated by striving for prestige, and hence demonstrating value, within their family. Results showed that cisgender men and women do not differ in the degree to which they seek familial recognition of their altruistic behavior toward nieces and nephews. However, compared to men, fa’afafine sought significantly more acknowledgment of this altruism. These results illustrate one proximate cognitive mechanism for the elevated kin-directed altruism of fa’afafine and highlight the importance of the sociocultural context in which these motivations develop.     

A theory of the value of children

This paper uses a non-standard value assumption—uncertainty reduction—to explain parenthood. We begin by reviewing the inadequacies of normative and standard rational choice explanations of shifts in fertility behavior. Then we propose a theory of the value of children based on the uncertainty-reduction assumption. Next we generate a range of hypotheses that follow both from this assumption and from a subsidiary assumption of marital solidarity enhancement. Finally, we explore the extent to which implications based on these new ideas are supported by the relevant empirical literature.     

Endogenous division rules as a family constitution: strategic altruistic transfers and sibling competition

Based on the notions of parental altruism, sibling competition, and family constitution, we present a self-enforcing model where heterogeneous children have economic incentives to supply family-specific merit goods (e.g., companionship) to their parents for securing inheritable wealth and the altruistic parents decide on division rules according to an optimizing behavior. In our analysis of intergenerational cooperation and intragenerational competition, the altruistic parents care about the efficiency of the children-provided merit goods and the equity of the children’s incomes. For an optimal allocation of wealth, the parents strategically partition it into two pools: one to be distributed equally whereas the other unequally according to their children’s supply of merit goods. We look at motivation of the parents in allocating their wealth to the two different pools. The analysis of endogenous division rules has implications for the compatibility between equal postmortem transfers and unequal inter vivos gifts, both of which are consistent with parental altruism.     

新型农村社会养老保险农民缴费意愿的可持续性分析

拥有财政补助政策是新农保制度最有吸引力的地方。选取养老金净转入额、农民参保缴费的机会成本来分析农民缴费意愿的可持续性,发现新农保是一项纯受益赚钱的制度,出于安全性、稳健性和收益性等方面的考虑,一个理性的农民是不会随便放弃参加新农保的。利用对湖北省仙桃市的实地调研数据进行分析发现：72．4％的农民有缴费意愿;性别、是否了解新农保政策、对自己未来老年生活的担心程度等变量,对农民的缴费意愿有显著的影响。为实现农民缴费意愿的可持续性,建议加强新农保的宣传。实现政府政务公开;落实好“长缴多补”政策;加强新农保的行政推动．适时改为强制参保。     

Labor immigration and long-run welfare in a growth model with heterogenous agents and endogenous labor supply

This paper examines the consequences of labor immigration in an OLG economy in which agents have an elastic labor supply and differ with respect to degrees of altruism and rates of time preference. It focuses on three substantive questions. First, how do immigrants influence the bequest motive of altruistic natives? Second, what impact do immigrants have on the labor supply of natives? Finally, how does immigration affect the long-run welfare of both altruistic and non altruistic natives? Received: 25 November 1999/Accepted: 07 April 2000     

Locus of control,altruism and agentic disposition

This study presents and empirically tests a simple model of attitudinal and personality influences on individual willingness to take action in support of the environment (agentic disposition) in a sample of 367 residents of Fairfax County in Virginia. The model, comprised of items from Schwartz's theory of norm activated altruism and an abridged version of Levenson's three-dimensional conception of locus of control, fits the data well. Results of the study indicate that 1) locus of control is best viewed as multidimensional rather than previous unidimensional conceptualizations, 2) each of the Levenson locus of control dimensions plays a unique role in the model of environmental agentic disposition, and 3) agentic disposition can be conceptualized as a type of norm activated altruism. The role of agentic disposition in legitimating the positions taken by social movement organizations is discussed.     

Happiness functions with preference interdependence and heterogeneity: the case of altruism within the family

This study investigates the prevalence and extent of altruism by examining the relationship between parents’ and their adult children’s subjective well-being in a data set extracted from the German Socio-Economic Panel. To segregate the share of parents with altruistic preferences from those who are selfish, we estimate a finite mixture regression model. We control for various sources of potential bias by taking advantage of the data’s panel structure. To validate our modeling approach, we show that predicted altruists indeed make higher average transfer payments.      

Voluntary income sharing and the design of unemployment insurance

This paper uses a model of search unemployment to discuss the interaction between publicly provided insurance and informal insurance through voluntary income sharing, e.g., between spouses. Income sharing reduces the optimal level of public unemployment insurance. While it is always individually rational for partners to share income, the effect of voluntary income sharing on welfare will be negative unless partners can either observe each other's search behavior or are sufficiently altruistic towards each other. The model is also used to examine a family-based policy. The welfare gains from using such policy are argued to be small. Received: 14 December 2000/Accepted: 5 November 2001     

Endogenous fertility in a model with non-dynastic parental altruism

A model of fertility choice is studied in which the utility of parents depends on how much they consume, on how many children they have and on the consumption of their children. Hence, parents are altruistic towards their children, but in a more limited sense than in the much discussed dynastic fertility model presented by Becker and Barro (1988). The concept of a (subgame perfect) bequest equilibrium is used to solve the non-dynastic model considered here. The steady state birth rate is lower in the non-dynastic model than in the Becker-Barro model. However, the key qualitative predictions concerning the dynamic behavior of fertility are strikingly similar in both models. JEL classification: J13, J11, D90. Received August 17, 1995/Accepted October 20, 1996     

Social security reform and the support for public education

Old age pensions and public education account for a large share of public budgets. We link both programs through a tax-transfer system that is also sensitive to labor market distortions. We analyze the impact that alternative pension reforms have, through the political process, on publicly financed education. We explain how changes in the pension system design affect the link between the two programs and also labor market incentives. These effects, if they exist, act in opposite directions. Overall, we find that most proposals that entail a partial privatization of pensions reduce the willingness of the society to fund public education.     

Health, widowhood, and family support in the North and South Pacific: a comparative study

This paper compares the impacts of health and widowhood on the level of support received by elderly women living in small island communities within the Philippines and Fiji. Using a theoretical perspective of ongoing reciprocal exchange as opposed to altruistic support within household economies, this paper reviews the impacts of disability and economic contributions on the level of support an elderly female receives. It is hypothesized that as the health of the widow declines her access to care will also diminish due to an inability to contribute to the household economies of the extended family. This paper extends existing work on health and family support of widowed females in the developing world by performing a cross-national comparative analysis as well as by explicitly testing the assumptions of altruism that are a central assumption of most models of long-term care in underdeveloped nations.     

Altruistic and contractual remittances between male and female migrants and households in rural Thailand

Past research has questioned the extent to which remittances are altruistic behaviors versus payments in a contractual relationship between households and migrants. This article explores altruistic and contractual patterns of remittances using a gendered approach. On the basis of results with various levels of significance in regression models, male and female migrants from Nang Rong, Thailand, behave both altruistically and contractually. However, women and migrants from poorer households behave more altruistically, while men and migrants from richer households behave more contractually. These results point to the need for further research and theory development to explain heterogeneities in migrants' behavior.     

Altruism and the macroeconomic effects of demographic changes

In this paper we show that the macroeconomic effects of demographic changes strongly depend on the degree of altruism and on the specification of the intertemporal utility function. We allow for agents either to be altruistic in the sense of Barro (1974) or non-altruistic. In the latter case, generations are heterogeneous like in the „unloved children” model of Weil (1989). In the former case, where the model is a standard Ramsey model with identical agents, we distinguish a Millian and a Benthamite intertemporal utility function. For each of these models, we study the effects of an anticipated and unanticipated permanent decline in population growth as well as the consequences of a baby-boom/baby-bust scenario. Received April 17, 1996/Accepted December 10, 1996     

Explaining hierarchical and interprovincial migrations of Chinese young adults by personal factors and place attributes: a nested logit analysis

"This paper uses a two-level nested logit model to explain the inter-stratum (city, town and rural county) and interprovincial migration behaviors of the young adults (aged 17-29) in China during a three-year period (1985-87), based on the micro data of the 1987 National Population Survey. The migration propensity of each person is represented by a departure probability and a destination choice probability. These probabilities are then expressed as functions of personal factors and place attributes. The main findings are that personal factors are of paramount importance in explaining the departure behaviors, and that both departure and destination behaviors responded to market forces in a sensible way, despite government control on territorial movements."     

新生代农民工市民化意愿的影响因素分析——基于广东省三市的调查

通过对广州、深圳、东莞三市外出务工人员的调查数据,运用理性选择理论,分析了新生代农民工市民化意愿及其影响因素。结果发现,年龄、性别、受教育程度和月收入都对新生代农民工的市民化意愿产生了影响;是否在城市购买住房、城市融入感和自我身份认同也影响了新生代农民工的市民化决策;购买城市社会保险显著提高市民化意愿。而务农经历、婚姻状况和是否获得技术等级证书则未对其市民化意愿产生影响。     

基于Logit模型的区域集镇系统需求分析及规模确定研究

集镇迁建并非简单的将集镇按照原规模从一个地方搬到另一个地方,集镇迁建规模的大小．应该根据迁入区的实际需求（需求规模）来确定,需求的大小主要取决于村民对集镇的选择行为,即越多的人选择到某个集镇进行活动,该集镇的需求规模越大,反之越小。影响集镇需求的因素很多,包括交通时间、交通费用、集镇服务种类、服务质量等,本文将其概括为广义费用和集镇效用（服务能力）,建立反映村民选择行为的Logit模型分析集镇需求情况,并将其应用于区域集镇系统布局优化中,以我国西部某地为例进行实证分析,反映搬迁前后一定区域内各榘镇需求规模的变化,同时计算出新集镇的需求规模,为集镇迁建规模的确定及其布局优化提供科学的参考。     

河南省流动人口体育健身现状及影响因素实证分析

本文通过对河南省635名流动人口的问卷调查的统计分析发现,只有18.2%的流动人口有体育健身的习惯,通过构建二值选择模型进行实证后得出：河南省流动人口的体育健身行为受教育程度、收入水平、幸福感、长期居留意愿、居住类型、孩子数、日工作时数和参保状况的影响显著,而性别、年龄、户口性质等因素没有通过显著性检验。根据实证分析结果,提出了加强和改善流动人口体育健身状况的建议和对策。     

高龄老人入住养老机构意愿的影响因素研究——以重庆市主城九区为例

高龄老人入住养老机构的意愿主要受个人特征、家庭特征和对养老机构认知等因素的影响,通过对重庆市主城九区实地调研,采用Logistic二元回归模型进行分析。结果表明居住地、年龄、家庭规模、家庭年净收入、设施完善程度、服务质量好坏等因素对高龄老人入住养老机构的意愿影响显著。在此基础上提出应重视农村地区机构养老模式发展、加快养老机构建设等建议。     

Self-care: Why do parents leave their children unsupervised?

We used a preferences-and-constraints model to develop four hypotheses to explain why parents may choose self-care (an unsupervised arrangement) as the primary child care arrangement for their children over supervised alternatives and tested them in a multivariate framework using 1995 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We found that the choice of self-care over supervised care alternatives is linked to the availability of parents' time to care for children, the child's level of responsibility and maturity, and the neighborhood context. However, we found no evidence that parents' ability to pay for child care is related to the choice of self-care. The results also suggest that parents use different decision-making processes, depending on their children's ages.