Subsistence,risk-taking,and reciprocity among the Tanchangya in the Chittagong Hill Tracts,Bangladesh

This paper examines livelihood strategies of Tanchangya culantro cultivators of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, in relation to their subsistence, risk-taking, and reciprocity practices, who have been embroiled in compulsive market participation due to paternalist state policies. It puts forward two propositions. First, the objectives of protecting subsistence and of improving familial situation drive Tanchangya peasants to employ flexible strategies in relation to risk management and income generation. Second, it proposes that reciprocity practices provide minimum security to village households in times of crises and exigencies, and work as a safeguard against the exploitation of capitalist Bengali traders. It concludes that subsistence struggles lead peasant families to choose most suitable crops and farming methods and remain open to diverse income sources. Village reciprocity practices, either as dynamic and evolving relationships between two actors or involving the larger community, having different forms, supplement this struggle of peasants for survival.     

Do norms matter for firm boundaries?

Even though norms have been integrated in the formal theory of the firm, we have not seen a clear-cut relationship between norms and firm boundaries. In a simple game of relationship specific investments, I show that the parties’ reputation for being trustworthy may be decisive for optimal asset ownership.     

Why do people engage in paid informal work? A comparison of higher- and lower-income urban neighbourhoods in Britain

The aim of this paper is to show that the extensive and growing sphere of paid informal work is not the same everywhere. Instead, we identify distinct socio-spatial differences in its character and the reasons why people engage in such work. Drawing upon interviews with 511 households in higher- and lower-income urban neighbourhoods of British cities, we reveal that for people living in the higher-income neighbourhoods, most paid informal work is conducted under social relations akin to formal employment. Exchange is between consumers and suppliers previously unknown to each other who are motivated by economic gain. For the populations of the lower-income neighbourhoods, in contrast, paid informal exchange occurs mostly between relatives, friends and neighbours for reasons associated with redistribution and sociality. Consequently, we show the need to move beyond assigning a universal character and logic to paid informal work and for greater recognition of the socio-spatial differences in this form of exchange. El objetivo de este articulo es demostrar que la esfera extensiva y creciente del trabajo pagado informal no es en todos sitios igual. En cambio, identificamos distintas diferencias socio-espaciales en al carácter y en el porque la gente se dedica a tales trabajos. Recurrimos a entrevistas con 511 hogares de barrios urbanos con ingresos elevados e ingresos bajos en varios ciudades británicas para revelar que, para los que viven en los barrios de ingresos elevados, la mayoría del trabajo pagado informal se conduce según relaciones sociales parecidas a las del empleo formal. En este caso, el intercambio ocurre entre consumidores y proveedores, previamente desconocidos, motivados por ganancia. Por cambio, en los barrios de ingresos bajos, el intercambio pagado informal ocurre principalmente entre familia, amigos y vecinos por razones asociadas con la redistribución y la socialidad. Por consiguiente, demostramos la necesidad de avanzar mas allá del mero nombrar un carácter y una lógica universal al trabajo pagado informal, y de dar mayor reconocimiento a las diferencias socio-espaciales en esta forma de intercambio.     

Incentivising trust

We argue that trust can be incentivised by measures which increase the ability of trusters to protect themselves against risk. We work within the framework originally established by Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe (1995) in which trust is measured experimentally as the ability to generate reciprocity in response to an initial offer of money within a two-person game. An incentive is conveyed both by means of variations in the multiplier applied to the first player’s initial offer and by giving the first player the opportunity to insure themselves against the possibility that the second player will fail to reciprocate their initial offer. Measured trust is strongly responsive to both these incentives. Thus third parties have the ability to influence the outcome of the game, not only, as in the analysis of Charness, Cobo-Reyes, and Jimenez (2008), by punishing failure to reciprocate and rewarding ‘good’ initial offers, but also by offering protection which strengthens the first player’s risk efficacy, or ratio of assets to risk.     

The communication of anger and disappointment helps to establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity

Indirect reciprocity is cooperation through reputation: third parties cooperate with those known to cooperate and defect against those known to defect. Defection, then, can have the unjust motive of greed or the just motive of retaliation. To establish cooperation, observers should distinguish both motives for defection and respond more cooperatively to the latter. We propose that the expression of emotions may facilitate this inferential process. Indeed, in two laboratory studies participants inferred that defection out of anger or disappointment was a just response to a defector and they responded more cooperatively than when no emotion was communicated. Moreover, participants inferred that defectors who evoked disappointment instead of anger had a relatively positive reputation. We conclude that emotions help establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity.     

Inequity aversion revisited

Using a laboratory experiment, we study the predictive power of the Fehr–Schmidt (1999) model of inequity aversion and its robustness to reciprocity and stakes. We find stronger evidence for the model’s predictive power at the individual level than what the existing literature suggests. This finding is robust to stakes. However, the model’s predictive power is highly reduced if subjects can reciprocate others’ actions. This suggests that parameter estimates obtained in an environment that allows for reciprocal responses yield a bias in the parameter estimates. In particular, previous estimates (especially of the disutility of disadvantageous inequity aversion) may overestimate the importance of inequity aversion.     

对等:正义的内在生成原则

正义作为“相同者同等对待”和“不同者差等对待”的统一,它的实现是以对等为中介的。从人的同一性出发,通过对等而实现同等对待,从人的差异性出发,通过对等而实现差等对待,对等是正义的内在生成原则。     

Markov chain Monte Carlo exact inference for social networks

The uniformly most powerful unbiased test of reciprocity compares the observed number of mutual relations to its exact conditional distribution. Metropolis–Hastings algorithms have been proposed for generating from this distribution in order to perform Monte Carlo exact inference. Triad census statistics are often used to test for the presence of network group structure. We show how one of the proposed Metropolis–Hastings algorithms can be modified to generate from the conditional distribution of the triad census given the in-degrees, the out-degrees and the number of mutual dyads. We compare the results of this algorithm with those obtained by using various approximations.     

Organ donation and reciprocity

The willingness to donate organs post-mortem varies considerably both across and within countries. Linking these differences to personal characteristics is an important focus of research investigating the supply of donor organs. Anecdotal evidence and previous findings indirectly suggest that the desire to reciprocate others’ (un)willingness to donate organs plays an important role in the decision to become an organ donor. We use individual measures of reciprocity in a large, representative survey in Germany and relate these to organ donation attitudes and behavior. Higher positive reciprocity is associated with a higher general willingness to donate organs, but it does not correlate with donor card possession. Individuals with higher negative reciprocity have a lower general willingness to donate organs and are less likely to have a donor card. Our findings open up the possibility of a double dividend of measures that increase organ donations. These could yield an additional increase of organ donations via a feedback loop through reciprocity.     

A New Pedagogical Approach for Integrating Social Work Students and Service Users

This paper analyses recent experiences at the School of Social Work, Lund University, the first in Sweden to use an innovative pedagogical approach for integrating social service users with social work students in the classroom (an EU-funded project). The concept of gift exchange was used to make sense of the approach. Gift exchange is based on the norm of reciprocity and the principles of gift economy—to give, to receive and to return. As one of the most significant integrative relations, this exchange of gifts and courtesies serves the purpose of keeping balance in the system. The focus in this project was on the relationship between two groups of students: service user students—that is, social service users in the role of students on the course—and social work students. The experience of undertaking this project raised many questions, such as what promotes and what hinders mutual learning between two parties in the classroom. Findings show the relevance of such concepts as the gift economy and the importance of reciprocity in teaching contexts. They played an important role in the process of creating a positive learning climate and understanding the integration of social relations between the two groups.