Transfers in Kind: Why They Can Be Efficient and Nonpaternalistic – Comment

Bruce and Waldman make an important contribution regarding the Samaritan dilemma: the expectations of inheritance motivates the younger generation at the margin in the direction of welfare reducing behavior. However, these authors misinterpret the standard analysis on this matter as prediction instead of explanation; confuse governmental subsidies with private charitable giving, and uncritically examine Headstart and statist job training programs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Homeless Affiliation, Location, and Sender Address in Return of Lost Letters

A field study used 1008 lost letters to test the hypotheses that the differences in returned responses would be attributable to the addressee (i.e., ending homelessness-control or preventing it among youth, veterans, and lesbians) and especially to a socially deviant addressee, that cultural differences between distribution locations might influence returned responses of lost letters, and that sender address (i.e., urban, rural, control) would also influence returned responses. Both addressees' affiliations and distribution location were associated with returned responses, with the lowest rates being for the Prevent Lesbian Homelessness Program affiliate overall and for the city of Pensacola, respectively. Antigay prejudice toward a deviant group may still be strong even when a helping act can be performed without intimate contact involving members of deviant group. Neither distribution location nor the sender or return address conditions were associated with different returned responses. Further testing of the lost letter technique, as a measure of public response, may be warranted.     

利己与利他相统一:善的最高层次

对善的定义虽存争议,但善存在着层次性却是可以确定的。从利己与利他角度而言,传统伦理学将纯粹利他视为最高层次的善,而我们则认为利己与利他的统一是最高层次的善,对最高层次善的不同界定,是奠定理想道德与现实道德的基石,其理论意义与实践意义显而易见。     

Space,gentrification and traditional open-air markets: how do vendors in the Carmel market in Tel Aviv interpret changes?

Space is often believed to lose its importance in the global era as individuals cease to interact face-to-face in favor of online communication. Studying the Carmel market located in city center Tel Aviv, Israel aims to show how space, in a global city, is constantly produced, reproduced, and transformed in reaction to the changes in the community that uses the space and remains an invaluable resource for its users. By specifying the vendors’ perspective on the changes the market undergoes, this article offers an often missing aspect of the study of space, gentrification, and human action. It argues that public spaces in gentrified areas provide the vendors with means to instill their actions, traditional values which often lose their primacy in a global era and gain social recognition. I spent two years of participant observation and detailed ethnographic interviews with vendors. These have led me to conclude that in addition to a steady income that access to space provides, the vendors claim access to space to enable them to sustain familial values and offer to members of the community the opportunity of face-to-face interaction. Also they interpret their interaction with the new clients as a means of compensating for lack of social upward mobility.     

Giving,Saving, Spending: What Would Children Do with £1 Million?

This article explores children's responses to a single question: ‘If someone gave you £1 million today, what would you do with it?’ Although such an exploration might seem trivial, we argue that their responses provide important insights into children's values and priorities. One‐third intend to spend it all, one quarter to save it. But the largest group claim that they would give all or some of the money away. Their responses highlight the divergent ways in which children use money to foster particular forms of social relations and social standing. Against the prevalent discourse of consumer society, the dominant theme of giving may indicate that the individualism of neoliberalism is less pervasive than is often feared, but also suggest that further research is needed into the social contexts and processes which encourage children to be ‘givers’, ‘savers’ or ‘spenders’.     

Endogenous fertility in a model with non-dynastic parental altruism

A model of fertility choice is studied in which the utility of parents depends on how much they consume, on how many children they have and on the consumption of their children. Hence, parents are altruistic towards their children, but in a more limited sense than in the much discussed dynastic fertility model presented by Becker and Barro (1988). The concept of a (subgame perfect) bequest equilibrium is used to solve the non-dynastic model considered here. The steady state birth rate is lower in the non-dynastic model than in the Becker-Barro model. However, the key qualitative predictions concerning the dynamic behavior of fertility are strikingly similar in both models. JEL classification: J13, J11, D90. Received August 17, 1995/Accepted October 20, 1996     

On time and money donations

This paper investigates the importance of two forms of ‘impure’ altruism (“warm glow” and reputational concerns) as potential determinants of both time and money gifts. We first develop a comprehensive behavioral model which accounts for both types of donations, as well as for decisions about domestic and market hours of work. We then provide an empirical test of these drivers for giving using survey data for Italy. Results suggest that, according to the theoretical predictions, proxies for ‘impure’ altruism are important determinants of donations. Moreover, the unobservable determinants driving money and time donations are positively correlated, suggesting a certain degree of complementarity between the two decisions. Our findings also stress the importance of considering a behavioral model accounting for a full set of time and income uses to better characterize individual decisions to donate.     

Migrant Interactions With Elderly Parents in Rural Cambodia and Thailand

This paper examines interactions between older adults living in rural areas of Thailand and Cambodia and their adult children. Thai data come from the Survey of the Welfare of the Elderly (N= 3,202 older adults and 17,517 adult children). Cambodia data are from the Survey of the Elderly in Cambodia (N= 777 older adults and 3,751 adult children). Results indicate that older adults in rural areas are not being abandoned, and supportive expressions such as visits and provision of material goods depend on living proximity, characteristics that relate to the needs and dependency of the older adult, and the life circumstances of adult children. These findings support an extension of an altruistic perspective that incorporates notions of vulnerability of older adults.     

评密尔《论自由》关于国家干预的限度原则

密尔在<论自由>一书中提出了一条基于利己和利他之分的国家干预的限度原则来作为划清个人自由与国家权力之间的界限,他的这一原则遭到了后来许多学者的质疑和批判.作者在此将尝试着对这些来自正反两方面立场进行辨析和论证,并揭示了密尔所确立的这条关于国家干预原则的局限性.