“…and they are really lying”: Clean evidence on the pervasiveness of cheating in professional contexts from a field experiment

We investigate the pervasiveness of lying in professional contexts such as insurance fraud, tax evasion and untrue job applications. We argue that lying in professional contexts share three characterizing features: (1) the gain from the dishonest behavior is uncertain, (2) the harm that lying may cause to the other party is only indirect and (3) lies are more indirect lies by action or written statements. Conducted as a field experiment with a heterogenous group of participants during a University “Open House Day”, our “gumball-machine-experiment” provides field evidence on how preferences for lying are shaped in situations typically found in professional contexts which we consider to be particularly prone to lying behavior compared to other contexts. As a key innovation, our experimental design allows measuring exact levels of cheating behavior under anonymous conditions. We find clean evidence that cheating is prevalent across all sub groups and that more than 32% of the population cheats for their own gain. However, an analysis of the cheating rates with respect to highest educational degree and professional status reveals that students cheat more than non-students. This finding warrants a careful interpretation of generalizing laboratory findings with student subjects about the prevalence of cheating in the population.     

疾病的宗教性建构：理解农民因病信教的行为和动机——以一个河南乡村基督教会为例

近年来,农村地区的一些村民在身患重病难以得到医疗救治的情况下,会尝试将信仰基督教作为一种替代治疗方案。本文通过对豫东陈村教会农民因病信教现象的深入分析,发现本土化的基督教为农民的疾病医治提供了一套“合理”的解释体系,通过“神医结合”的方式,有些农民疾病的痊愈得以可能。“疾病”和“苦难”被赋予新的意义,被构建为“神拣选之前的考验”,继而导向皈依基督教。农民最初的功利性信仰,会经由宗教仪式的出席和宗教实践的参与而逐渐形成对基督教的理解和体验。农民因病信教成为基督教民间信仰化和本土化实践的重要表现形式。     

To live an ordinary life: resource needs and additional costs for people with a physical impairment

Disabled people face increased risks of living in poverty largely due to lower incomes and extra resource requirements compared to non-disabled people. This study incorporated the social model of disability with an economic approach to costing to estimate the additional costs required by people with a physical impairment to achieve an adequate standard of living in New Zealand. Budgets estimating the additional equipment, modifications, transport, support and time required to achieve an adequate standard of living were developed and validated through focus groups with community members. The findings suggest that reducing barriers involves substantial costs ranging from NZ$645–$2,348 per week.     

Priority Rules for Multi‐Task Due‐Date Scheduling under Varying Processing Costs

We study the scheduling of multiple tasks under varying processing costs and derive a priority rule for optimal scheduling policies. Each task has a due date, and a non‐completion penalty cost is incurred if the task is not completely processed before its due date. We assume that the task arrival process is stochastic and the processing rate is capacitated. Our work is motivated by both traditional and emerging application domains, such as construction industry and freelance consulting industry. We establish the optimality of Shorter Slack time and Longer remaining Processing time (SSLP) principle that determines the priority among active tasks. Based on the derived structural properties, we also propose an effective cost‐balancing heuristic policy and demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed policy through extensive numerical experiments. We believe our results provide operators/managers valuable insights on how to devise effective service scheduling policies under varying costs.     

我国竞技体育职业化改革成本的经济学分析

在竞技体育职业化发展过程中,成本和效益是必须考虑的因素,但竞技水平和比赛的观赏性决定了职业体育与市场经济的关系,从经济学角度对我国竞技体育职业化的改革成本进行了分析与评价,阐述了几种具有我国特色的职业体育发展模式的优缺点,为我国竞技体育职业化向科学、系统、规范的方向发展提供了新思路。     

Old and Cold: Older People and Policies Failing to Address Fuel Poverty

Research, funded by the British Gas Help the Aged Partnership and carried out by the Institute of Gerontology, King's College London, explored the multidimensional issues of fuel poverty. A sample of older homeowners and private renters living in England, Scotland and Wales were interviewed in the Spring of 2003 to explore their experiences of keeping their homes warm in the preceding winter. It was found that almost half of the sample for whom full information was available were in fuel poverty. Government schemes failed to address some important issues. Grants were only available to those with “passport benefits”, excluding those who had minimal occupational pensions. Although most respondents had central heating, it was often old and ineffective, yet grants were not available to modernize them. Government schemes did not extend to paying for external and internal insulation for solid wall properties yet many older people live in such property. Several older people lived in rural areas not connected to mains gas. As mains gas currently provides the cheapest fuel, they faced high bills, yet government policies do not address the differential fuel costs in these areas. The culture of many older people in the study contributed to their living in cold homes. They lived frugally and usually turned heating off in daylight hours during winter. It was also a common practice to sleep in an unheated bedroom during winter and to keep the window open at night. Such practices are acknowledged to be unhealthy.     

Five tumultuous years in Australian child protection: little progress

In an article published in 2002, one of the authors of this paper offered an analysis of the Australian child protection data from 1999 to 2000 and raised questions about the effectiveness of mandatory reporting. Recently, child protection data for 2003–2004 has been released. This provides an opportunity to re‐examine some child protection issues and the effectiveness of mandatory reporting 5 years on. These have been tumultuous years. Each state and territory has held major inquiries into this area of practice and, as a result, significant organizational changes have taken place and new resources are being made available. Nevertheless, questions about the effectiveness of child protection services remain. There is continuing doubt about the value of comprehensive reporting systems.     

Engendering Response: Professional Gesture and the Assessment of Eyesight in Optometry Consultations

Many of the procedures undertaken within healthcare require specialized forms of participation that may be unfamiliar, even disturbing, to patients or clients. The practitioner has to encourage and enable participation in the investigation in an appropriate fashion while preserving the structure and integrity of the procedure. In this article, we consider optometry and the deployment of a vision test, known as subject refraction, that provides data to help determine the characteristics of any corrective lens that may be required by clients. The procedure's ability to establish robust and reliable data relies upon the optometrist's ability to encourage the client to respond to a series of stimuli without consideration or reflection. That is, the client is required to produce an unwitting response—conduct that might be considered nonsymbolic rather than symbolic. In this article, we also consider the optometrist's talk and bodily comportment during subjective refraction and how it serves to shape and determine the quality of the client's response and participation, and in turn to produce reliable test results.     

宁波外贸优势解析：制度经济学观点

主流经济学在解释国际贸易原因时,都未考虑制度因素对形成国际贸易优势的影响,将制度视为既定的或者制度的影响可以忽略不计,因而在解释现实世界中暴露出许多局限性。文章从分析宁波外贸优势原因出发,从产权制度、政府政策、人力资本和产业集群等方面分析了制度对宁波外贸发展所起的作用,指出制度因素是决定宁波外贸优势的关键因素。     

西方信贷融资担保理论

西方信贷融资担保理论认为作为融资中介机构的银行和借款者之间在履行信贷融资担保过程中存在一定的交易成本。这种交易成本直接影响贷款利率水平。在信息不对称的信贷市场中，贷款利率和担保要求对于不同风险偏好的款者会产生逆向选择效应，并且可能会引发道德风险。担保对于借款者的品质又具有信号和传递作用，这有利于贷款者更好地进行风险控制。借贷双方在长期业务交往中建立起来的信贷关系本身就是一种担保资源，它既能够产生关系借款者品质的信息，也有利于缓解信贷市场的信息不对称问题。