A MODEL OF ADDICTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

Many consumer behaviors are both addictive and social. Understanding how these two phenomena interact informs basic models of human behavior, and matters for policymakers when the behavior is regulated. I develop a new model of demand that incorporates both addiction and social interactions and show that, under certain conditions, social interactions reinforce the effects of addiction. I also show how the dynamics introduced by addiction can solve the pernicious problem of identifying the causal effects of social interactions. I then use the model to illustrate a new and important identification problem for studies of social interactions: existing estimates cannot be used to draw welfare conclusions or even to deduce whether social interactions increase aggregate demand. Finally, I develop a method that allows researchers to distinguish between two common forms of social interactions and draw welfare conclusions. (JEL D11, H20)     

ADDICTION, COMPULSION, AND THE TECHNOLOGY OF CONSUMPTION

The consumption technology model of Lancaster and Becker is extended to include addictive activities. Assuming a utility function in which the individual places a premium on maintenance of self-esteem, the model generates empirically verified patterns of habituation, withdrawal, and the compulsive restarting of an abandoned habit. It is then applied to the analysis of public policies toward drug abuse. Their frequent ineffectiveness is shown to result from an unwarranted emphasis on deterring the addictive activity rather than on encouraging atceptable behavior.     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF ALCOHOL ADDICTION: RESULTS FROM THE MONITORING THE FUTURE PANELS

In a panel of young adults, we find that alcohol consumption is addictive in the sense that increases in past or future consumption cause current consumption to rise. The positive and significant future consumption effect is consistent with the hypothesis of rational addiction. The long-run price elasticity is approximately 60% larger than the short-run price elasticity and twice as large as the elasticity that ignores addiction. Thus, a tax hike policy to curtail consumption or abuse may not have a favorable cost-benefit ratio unless it is based on the long-run price elasticity. (JEL 110)     

SURVEYS AS LEGAL EVIDENCE

Survey researchers are frequently frustrated and irritated bythe difficulties they encounter when the results of their surveysare introduced as legal evidence. The sources of these difficultiesare traced to contrasting scientific and legal interest in "truth"and methods for establishing truth. These contrasts explainwhy the scientific worth of a survey is, by itself, insufficientto establish its relevance and value as evidence in an individualcase. Consequently, despite the widespread use of survey datain litigation, the admissibility of and evidentiary weight givento surveys remains problematic. Survey researchers must be assensitive to legal precedent and rules of evidence as they areto scientific method when designing surveys for their data tobe accepted by a court.     

PROMOTIONS AS WORK INCENTIVES

Why do professional partnerships like law firms, accounting practices, and management consulting groups to name a few, rely almost exclusively on promotions for incentives and do not typically use incentive pay to motivate their associates? We compare three schemes (relative-input-based piece rates, tournaments with monetary prizes, and tournaments with promotions as prizes) within an environment characterized by group production and double moral hazard induced by possible wealth constraints on the supervisors. We find that the difficulty in implementing promotion tournaments is possibly an important reason for the existence of firms.     

“超级红娘”，把甜蜜事业进行到底

“红娘我,笑哈哈,说成一对心开花,我是快乐的小燕子（老蜜蜂）,忙忙碌碌不在家,东奔西跑我不累,我把爱情的种子撒……”这是刘国英老人自编自唱的一段话,也是她27年来每一天的真实写照。从当年的“小燕子”到如今的“老蜜蜂”,刘国英老人以一颗善良、无私的心为3148对单身男女牵上了姻缘线,被人们誉为“超级红娘”。     

RACISM AS RENT SEEKING

Rules governing social and economic interactions among ethnic groups are modeled as public goods. The publicness of social rules can explain why race has been so consistently politicized. The potential gains from public provision attract political entrepreneurs into the field. In the absence of some constitutional restraints upon such rent seeking, race is bound to be politicized. In addition, the model can explain the existence of many government policies concerning race that are not apparently motivated by economic gain. Finally, government enforcement of ethnic economic cartels can explain some of the persistent differences in earnings across ethnic groups.     

THE MOTHER AS CONSUMER:

The historical context of the emergence of the "mother as consumer" is the subject of this article. The newly formed children's clothing industry and its trade press (1917-1929) serve as entry points into this investigation. The focus is on examining several nodes of intersection among the domestic sphere of mothers and children, the involvement of mothers in child welfare efforts, and the strategies of some in the merchant class to capture the "mother trade" by exhorting consumption on behalf of children. An ideology of maternal consumption served to adjudicate the integration of the sacred sphere of mothers and children with the profane world of the marketplace by recasting motherhood as consumer practice.     

THE INFORMATION SOCIETY AS MEGA-MACHINE

Too often the history of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is wrenched out of the history of technology and presented as something altogether separate and therefore different, rendering previous analyses irrelevant. However, there are sufficient analytical tools to hand without the continual invention of new paradigms to understand the current stage of technological advance. To support this contention, in this article, the continuing relevance of Lewis Mumford is explored. Mumford's discussion of the megalopolis and the emergence of the invisible city as its most developed state make a direct link with the networked information society, establishing a link between the information society and Mumford'sanalysis of the previous history of technology.At the centre of Mumford'sdiscussion of this history is the dialectic interaction of authoritarian and democratic technics. Mumford's notion of technics stresses that technologies can not be divided from the social relations in which they appear. In the information society,this dialectical pair map onto the twin dynamics of enclosure and disclosure. The former dynamic represents the control of information through commodification and marketization, the latter the recognition of the empowering and emancipatory qualities of ICTs. Up until now,discussions of the information society have regarded only one or other dynamic as normal, whereas utilizing Mumford'sinsight, the contradictory character of the information society can be theorized without rendering the second dynamic abnormal. Thus, the article concludes that recourse to Mumford's ideas, to re-embed ICTs in the history of technology, allows a more nuanced and fruitful treatment of current developments in information society.     

SUPERMARKETS AS A NATURAL OLIGOPOLY

This paper proposes and tests a model of supermarket competition based upon an endogenous fixed cost (EFC) framework (Sutton, J. Sunk Cost and Market Structure: Price Competition, Advertising, and the Evolution of Concentration. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.). The relevance of the EFC framework to supermarket competition stems from the industry's surprisingly uniform competitive structure: irrespective of the size of the local market, a small number of firms (between three and six) capture the majority of sales. As markets grow, local rivalry drives firms to expand their fixed investments, limiting the number of firms that can profitably enter even the largest markets. Although markets stay concentrated, competition remains fierce, reflecting the inherently rivalrous nature of the underlying competitive mechanism. The goal of this paper is to identify the strategic focus of this rivalry, namely the drive to provide an ever greater variety of consumer products, and to eliminate alternative explanations for the observed structure by highlighting the unique form of firm conduct that characterizes this industry. (JEL D21, D43, L11, L13, L22, L81)     

THE STATE AS PIMP:

This article explores the state organization of prostitution in Japan in the 1940s. The Japanese military and the colonial government in Korea created "comfort divisions' ( iantai ) for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Furthermore, one of the first postwar acts of the Japanese state was to resuscitate "comfort divisions' as the Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) for the U.S. occupation forces. In narrating state actions and organizations, I analyze the political-economic and ideological underpinnings that enabled the state to act as pimp.     

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME AS VERNACULAR RESOURCE

First coined in 1973 to describe a pathological response on the part of individuals involved in kidnapping or hostage‐taking situations, the label “Stockholm syndrome” has since been used in a much broader range of contexts including reference to wife battering and human trafficking, and in debates about gender and race politics as well as international relations. Tracing the domain expansion of Stockholm syndrome since the 1970s, we examine how the label offers claims‐makers a device for neutralizing the arguments of those with opposing points of view, and, in so doing, reinforces collective narratives and “formula stories” of victimization.     

THE SELF AS A SOLILOQUY

The major shortcomings in the Meadian and Neo-Meadian views of the self are identified. An alternative view of the self as a soliloquy that avoids these particular shortcomings is presented. In this alternative view, an "us" or "phantom community" is seen as playing the premier part in our soliloquies. Thirteen principles that govern soliloquizing are explicated, including ones governing the nature and form of our soliloquies, the creation of our emotions, the hidden sources of our emotional sensitivities, the painting of our self portraitures, the origin and nature of our phantom communities, as well as governing our display of individuality and conformity.     

ABU GHRAIB AS A MICROCOSM: THE STRANGE FACE OF EMPIRE AS A LIVED PRISON

Drawing on Derrida, Foucault, Dorothy Smith, Anzaldúa, Wallerstein, Said, and Gurdjieff, among others, this article argues that the strangeness of Abu Ghraib—“father of the strange (or of the stranger)”—has less to do with what went on inside the prison and more with the global prison yard. Strange is how we, global spectators of the prison abuses, continue to stand on shaky cardboard boxes of rising and falling empires with hoods of amnesia and evasion put on our minds, and sophisticated media wires of true or false fears manipulating our emotions. To escape from prison, a mystic once said, one must first realize one is in prison. The inquiry is used as grounds for advancing a discourse on Newtonian and quantal sociological imaginations in favor of a Sociology of Self-knowledge.     

COLLEGE CHOICE AS A COLLECTIVE DECISION

Although the choice between colleges can be thought of as being made collectively by a family, models of educational choice almost universally portray the decision as made by the student alone. Using a novel experimental method for identifying collective decision functions, I find that students have more influence than parents over the decision, but not exclusive control. Students care more than parents about classroom experience and future earnings. Ignoring the dual‐agent nature of the decision can weaken predictions and lead to poorly targeted policy designs. (JEL I21, J24, D13)