Manipulation via Endowments in Exchange Markets with Indivisible Goods

We consider exchange markets with heterogeneous indivisible goods. We are interested in exchange rules that are efficient and immune to manipulations via endowments (either with respect to hiding or destroying part of the endowment or transferring part of the endowment to another trader). We consider three manipulability axioms: hiding-proofness, destruction-proofness, and transfer-proofness. We prove that no rule satisfying efficiency and hiding-proofness (which together imply individual rationality) exists. For two agents with separable and responsive preferences, we show that efficient, individually rational, and destruction-proof rules exist. However, for some profiles of separable preferences, no rule is efficient, individually rational, and destruction-proof. In the case of transfer-proofness the compatibility with efficiency and individual rationality for the two-agent case extends to the unrestricted domain. If there are more than two agents, for some profiles of separable preferences, no rule is efficient, individually rational, and transfer-proof.     

Responsibility-Alleviation and Other-Regarding Preferences with Peer Workers in Labor Markets: An Experimental Investigation

A peer worker is introduced in a controlled labor market experiment characterized by unobservable effort and incomplete contracts. Workers make decisions independently and without knowledge of each other??s actions in a modified gift exchange experiment. Introducing a peer worker into an ongoing market has a negative and significant effect on effort. This decrease in effort is consistent with responsibility-alleviation on the part of employees and not with other-regarding equity concerns for the manager??s payoffs.     

Private Provision of Infrastructure in Emerging Markets: Do Institutions Matter?

Governments in developing countries have encouraged private sector investment to meet the growing demand for infrastructure. According to institutional theory, the role of institutions is paramount in private sector development. A longitudinal dataset of 40 developing economies between 1990 and 2000 is used to test empirically how different institutional structures affect private investment in infrastructure, in particular its volume and frequency. The results indicate that property rights and bureaucratic quality play a significant role in promoting private infrastructure investment. Interestingly, they also suggest that countries with higher levels of corruption attract greater private participation in infrastructure.     

Durable‐Goods Monopoly with Privately Known Impatience: A Theoretical and Experimental Study

We analyze a durable‐goods monopoly selling a single unit of a good to a buyer whose value of the good is private information. The discount factors of the buyer and the seller may differ and are also privately known. We derive the closed‐form solution of a two‐period game and compare it to the behavior observed in experiments. The data are to a large extent consistent with the predictions.     

Reducing Public Misinformation About Organ Donation: An Experimental Intervention

Abstract

The shortage of life-saving human organs for transplantation today is a growing and international problem. A recent survey in this Journal found that people with “more accurate information about organ donation practices are more likely to be organ donors (r= .225, p< .01)” (Nickols, Stack, Viviano, & Whitney, 2008, p. 240). How much can a factual 20-minute message about organ donation significantly increase people's knowledge and pro-donation behavior? In this field experiment, 101 students in two urban colleges completed a one-page survey before and after an expert's 20-minute message. The survey assessed participants' knowledge about organ donation from 0 (low) to 40 (high), biodata, self-reported experiences, and behavior in the past (registered organ donor) and future (consider becoming a donor). As hypothesized: (1) Pre-message knowledge about organ donation was moderate (mean = 21.8 on the 0-40 scale), and rose significantly after the message (mean = 28.6, p < .01). (2) This knowledge positively correlated with consideration to register in the future as an organ donor (r = +.41; p < .001 post-presentation). (3) However, there was no significant correlation of prior donor registration with knowledge prior to the message (r = +.08) or after the message (r = +.04). From these findings, it seems a brief FAQ fact-sheet or DVD would be highly useful to increase people's accurate knowledge about donations.     

Legal-Age Students' Provision of Alcohol to Underage College Students: An Exploratory Study

Objective: The authors investigated the magnitude and cultural context of legal-age university students' provision of alcohol to underage students and how such alcohol provision might be deterred.

Participants: 130 legal-age students at a midwestern university in the United States were randomly selected.

Methods: The authors assessed 16 focus groups and a thematic analysis.

Results: Most participants reported frequent alcohol provision. Most denied moral responsibility for any negative consequences that recipients might suffer. Small numbers of participants, chiefly women, would decrease alcohol provision after education on the sexual risks to underage females. Larger numbers would decrease provision in response to consistent law enforcement, severe legal and disciplinary penalties, and education on severe penalties.

Conclusions: Legal-age students' provision of alcohol to underage students is an integral part of college students' drinking culture. As a deterrent, an enforcement-based campaign may be more effective than an educational campaign on the possible negative consequences of alcohol for underage students.     

基于公共物品理论的城市公共自行车可持续发展研究——以北京市为例

城市公共自行车是一项惠民工程,它具备了部分准公共物品的属性,即一定程度上的非排他性、一定程度上的非竞争性以及较强的正外部性,所以,市场对于城市公共自行车的有效供应会小于最优值,而且有可能出现"公地悲剧"的情况,因此,需要政府来直接提供或对提供城市公共自行车的私人部门进行补偿、激励。但随着社会经济的发展变化,在城市公共自行车的供给上政府和私人部门的边界发生了偏移,城市共享单车的出现和蓬勃发展是市场自然选择的结果。本文以公共物品理论为指导,结合北京市公共自行车发展的三个阶段,分析了城市公共自行车可持续发展中面临的主要困境,并对如何破局提出了思考。     

Institutionalizing Public Relations: An International Multiple-Case Study

This research predicts and supports a model of potentially ascending cultural competence beginning with public relations practitioners' preparation for international assignments, leading to assignment-seeking behavior, success, and satisfaction in those assignments, leading to consequently increased cross-cultural competence. Results indicate that academic and professional preparation for international assignments among U.S. practitioners is limited, but that preparation correlates positively with success and satisfaction in international assignments.     

The Social Psychophysics of Cooperation: Nonverbal Communication in a Public Goods Game

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that cooperation in a social dilemma context could be facilitated by inducing participants to emit social psychophysical cues, information in the perceptual array that affords meaningful and consequential social inferences. In particular, participants were asked to engage in mutual eye gaze, to touch one another gently, to communicate in a virtual chat room, or to tap out rhythms in synchrony. All but the last of these manipulations increased contributions to a public good in all-male but not all-female groups. These results suggest the inference systems that are engaged when individuals make decisions about whether or not to cooperate in a group context are responsive to relatively low level nonverbal behavioral cues.     

Understanding the Role of Nonprofit Organizations in the Provision of Social Services in China: An Exploratory Study

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article examines the role of nonprofit organizations in government-nonprofit collaboration in the provision of social...     

“三旧”改造中的公益性项目供给机制研究——基于公共物品理论的思考

2008年底,国土资源部和广东省人民政府签订《共同建设节约集约用地试点示范省合作协议》,“三旧”改造作为重要内容之一受到了来自社会各界的广泛关注。目前,“三旧”改造已实施两年多,在提高土地利用效率、推动城市和产业转型升级等方面取得了显著成效,但改造中诸如历史文化遭到破坏、开发强度过高、拆迁利益冲突等问题也逐渐凸显。本文以“公共物品”为视角,重点关注“三旧”改造中公益性项目配套落实过程中存在的问题,分析其原因,并借鉴西方经济学“公共物品理论”,探讨了公益性项目在“三旧”改造中得以有效供给的机制。     

Public diplomacy to promote Global Public Goods (GPG): Conceptual expansion, ethical grounds, and rhetoric

Traditional conceptualizations of public diplomacy stress three dimensions, namely image cultivation, advocacy of national interests, and promotion of mutual understanding. This research expands the scope of public diplomacy by adding an additional dimension, namely promotion of Global Public Goods (GPG). The research argues that creating and preserving GPG should be one of the functions of public diplomacy in an era when global warming and globalization of health become realities that dictate the entire humankind to meet the challenge in collective action. The research also explored the ethical grounds and rhetoric of the new dimension of public diplomacy.     

Communication and Attributions in a Crisis: An Experimental Study in Crisis Communication

This study provides a partial test of a symbolic approach to crisis management. The symbolic approach examines the strategies used to respond to crises. The study concentrated on the match between crisis type and crisis response strategy. An experimental design was used to explore how crisis type, organization performance history and crisis response were associated with the image of an organization. Additional analyses explored how causal attributions varied according to crisis type. For the cases tested, the results supported the use of the crisis response strategies recommended by the symbolic approach. The results of the experiment supported the basic assumptions of the approach. The implications and directions for future investigations using the symbolic model are discussed.     

Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies: An Introduction

This is the Introduction to the special issue entitled "The Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies.”