Monetizing Longevity Gains under Welfare Interdependencies: An Exploratory Study

Whereas existing indicators of standards of living neglect the dependence of individual well-being on other people’s welfare, this paper aims at constructing an income-based indicator taking welfare interdependencies into account. For that purpose, an extension of Usher’s longevity-adjusted income measure is developed, where the selfish representative agent is replaced by a two-generation representative household, whose members are connected by altruistic links. Longevity-adjusted income figures are shown, for the U.S. (1901–1999), to be significantly sensitive to the postulated altruism, so that conventional measures, by neglecting joint survival achievements, may underestimate actual improvements in living conditions. Methodological issues raised by the inclusion of interdependencies are also discussed, such as the increased difficulty, for indicators, to reflect the complexity and diversity of preferences.

苗族家庭消费中的两性关系——以滇东一苗族社区为主要个案

以“家庭利他主义”为分析框架,探讨苗族女性与男性在家庭消费倾向和行为上的不同表现形式和特点。这些不同特点的实质是两性关系的不平等。两性关系中弱势一方的女性由于消费的介入更显弱势,两性关系朝着更加不利于女性的方向发展。     

Social media charity campaigns and pro-social behaviour. Evidence from the Ice Bucket Challenge

Social media use plays an important role in shaping individuals’ social attitudes and economic behaviours. One of the first well-known examples of social media campaigns is the Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC), a charity campaign that went viral on social media networks in August 2014, aiming to collect money for research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We rely on UK longitudinal data to investigate the causal impact of the Ice Bucket Challenge on pro-social behaviours. In detail, this study shows that having been exposed to the IBC increases the probability of donating money, and it also increases the amount of money donated among those who donate at most £100. We also find that exposure to the IBC has increased the probability of volunteering and the level of interpersonal trust. However, all these results, except for the result on the intensive margins of donations, are of short duration and are limited to less than one year. This supports the prevalent consensus that social media campaigns may have only short-term effects.     

对我国合同法第64条规定性质的探讨——从一个案例谈起

对我国《合同法》第64条规定性质有利他合同说、非真正利他合同说和宽泛说三种不同解读,通过对上述三种观点的分析得出宽泛说是对《合同法》第64条的最优解释。     

自利行为新探

理论与现实中存在着将自私、自利、利他行为不同程度的混同现象,尤其是没有正确认识自利行为;自利的实际内容在不同的社会发展阶段是变化的,合理、正当的自利要求只能依据具体社会制度、法律、道德规范加以规定并据以判断;没有人的自利意识就不会有人的自私、利他观念,没有人的自利要求也不会产生自私、利他行为;不论就个体还是就社会总体来看,人的自利行为是最普遍的行为。     

Familial relations and labor market outcomes: the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

We analyze intra-family support among Palestinians living in Lebanon, using detailed household survey data from the refugee camps and Palestinian communities in Lebanon and latent class analysis technique. The study uncovers five latent classes of familial exchange. Two different theoretical models—the solidarity and reciprocal exchange—are used to examine the link between patterns of assistance and labor market conditions. Contrary to the solidarity account, we find no evidence of high familial assistance among the unemployed, or those excluded from the labor market, and this is true regardless of type of exchange. However, the camp population is more likely to engage in exchange relations than their non-camp counterparts. The married, loners, educated, employed, and those with stronger ties to relatives are more likely to be money exchangers. The findings are similar for care receivers, but age and gender figure prominently here. Some policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

The substitution of governance mechanisms in the evolution of family firms

This paper examines how family firms substitute corporate governance with family governance and self-governance at different stages of their development. We argue that the types of agency problems that family firms face as they pass from one generation to the next determine the extent to which these mechanisms can be used as substitutes for one another. Our empirical investigation provides evidence that in the early stages of a family firm's life cycle, instruments of self-governance lessen the need for mechanisms of corporate governance, whereas in the later stages, instruments of family governance can substitute for mechanisms of corporate governance.     

Leaving Home in Europe: The Role of Parents’ and Children’s Incomes

This paper examines the role of parents’ and children’s incomes in the ‘leaving home’ decisions of young adults in Europe. Using the ECHP data on 11 European countries, results from random and fixed-effects models suggest that the leaving home decision is positively related to the child’s income. The effect of parents’ income is less clear and of lower magnitude. These patterns are broadly similar among European countries, in spite of significant differences in the institutional contexts.     

From Gift Relationships to Quasi-markets: An Odyssey along the Policy Paths of Altruism and Egoism

Nearly forty years ago, the publication of ‘The Price of Blood’ (1968) and ‘The Gift Relationship’ (1970) added a new dimension of ideological conflict to the debate about the values, ends and means of social policy. The questions that Richard Titmuss posed in ‘The Gift Relationship’ are still discussed in current debates about the respective merits of unitary and pluralist models of welfare, the egoistic and altruistic motives that underpin them, and the rights and responsibilities intrinsic to the status of citizenship. The ways in which the content and focus of these debates have changed over the past forty years are here reviewed, taking Titmuss's ‘The Gift Relationship’, my own contributions in ‘Social Theory and Social Policy’ (1971) and ‘The Idea of Welfare’ (1979), and Julian Le Grand's ‘Motivation, Agency and Public Policy’ (2003) as the temporal and salient points of reference. A brief introduction describes how the academic debate became sharply polarized in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and how a key decision about the future development of this journal was taken at the same time.     

Living life for others and/or oneself: The social development of life orientations

A range of social science research suggests Americans are becoming more self-oriented over time, and that this focus comes at a cost to general concern with community. Examining data from a large-scale national study of college students, we explore this influential hypothesis on two fronts. First, we empirically investigate whether people who are especially concerned with personal achievement are necessarily less concerned about contributing to their community. Contrary to most iterations of the individualism thesis, we find that significant numbers of individuals are concerned with both personal success and political/social involvement. To explore further, we expand this supposed single dimension into a fourfold typology, showing that many people are ‘idealists’ (concerned with both self and others) and ‘apathists’ (relatively unconcerned with either). After broadening the taken-for-granted egoist/altruist continuum, we explore antecedent social structural, aspirational, and social psychological factors that predict membership in these value preference groups. The findings from our preliminary model suggest that these broad orientations are shaped by a complex array of factors across multiple domains.