The Effects of Spousal Health on the Decision to Smoke: Evidence on Consumption Externalities, Altruism and Learning Within the Household

Married individuals are healthier than single individuals though the reasons are not well understood. Individuals with spouses/or partners are less likely to smoke. We explore the relationship between health and marital status by analyzing three potential channels through which marriage affects smoking, i.e., consumption externalities (one spouse's smoking affects the other spouse's welfare), altruism (one spouse reduces smoking in response to the other spouse's bad health), and learning about risks of smoking from the health experience of one's spouse. We find spousal health does not affect smoking due to altruism or learning within the household but do find evidence for consumption externalities.     

Inter-group contact and out-group altruism after violence

Altruism among humans is common. It is especially prominent among in-group members. However, we are struck by results from laboratory-in-the-field experiments with out-group members of different ethnic or religious backgrounds. In all instances, the groups were rivals in civil wars. While we find almost no altruistic behavior among groups that were engaged in fighting, out-group altruism emerges with the passage of time. To address the underlying mechanism that might explain this puzzling result, we use a laboratory experiment that sorts between a norms revision explanation and a contact hypothesis explanation. Our findings show that contact with out-group members, in a mutually beneficial task, results in a reversion to prior levels of out-group altruism following conflict. Our findings reinforce the idea that deeply held attitudes toward a stigmatized out-group change following productive interactions with those out-group members. It is clear that hostility between groups need not persist over time.     

A constitutional theory of the family

The paper re-examines the idea that a family can be viewed as a community governed by a self-enforcing constitution, and extends existing results in two directions. First, it identifies the circumstances in which a constitution is renegotiation-proof. Second, it introduces parental altruism. The behavioural and policy implications are illustrated by showing the effects of public pensions and credit rationing. These implications are not much affected by whether altruism is assumed or not, but contrast sharply with those of more conventional models.

商会的产生机理:一个利他主义的解释

对于只提供集体公共产品的商会来说,如果行业内的企业都是利己主义者,且加入商会完全自愿,则"搭便车"的行为会使得集体行动无法实现,商会的发生机制亦将成为难解之迷。假如行业中存在利他主义的企业,其利他行为将使其他企业意识到行业的共同利益,从而抑制各自的机会主义倾向。利他主义者的存在起到了一种"凝结核"的作用,他们除了付出物质上的代价去增进行业的共同利益外,还会付出时间和精力去游说其他企业,推动行业的集体行动。多数行业的市场结构是不完全竞争的,企业规模参差不齐,一些规模较大的企业对于通过集体行动来获得合作剩余有着更强烈的需求,为了增进自身利益和整个集团的利益,这些规模较大的企业会成为商会的发起人。     

Do taboo trade-offs explain the difficulty in valuing health and social interventions?

Persistent anomalies in the results of willingness to pay studies, despite improvements in measurement technique, challenge the assumption in economics that all sources of value are commensurable. Two sources of incommensurability have been identified: interdimensional incommensurability, which refers to the cognitive difficulty that people encounter when trying to assign a monetary value to health; and constitutive incommensurability, which arises when some forms of trade-off are regarded as ‘taboo’. In this paper we explore whether the notion of taboo trade-offs might explain some of the difficulties experienced in health-related willingness to pay studies.     

Associations among altruism, burnout dimensions, and organizational citizenship behaviour

Most studies of burnout have focused on lack of resources, prevalence of burnout, and negative outcomes. In contrast, this study examined the relationships among altruism, burnout and a positive outcome, namely, the engagement in organizational citizenship behaviour. Web questionnaires were distributed to employees in three professional organizations. The results from the 178 respondents indicated that altruism is related to organizational citizenship behaviour. Of the three dimensions of burnout, only reduced personal accomplishment was (negatively) associated with engagement in organizational citizenship behaviours. Implications of the results are discussed and directions for future research are offered.     

Community Service Work,Civic Engagement,and “Giving Back” to Society: Key Factors in Improving Interethnic Relationships and Achieving “Connectedness” in Ethnically Diverse Communities

Abstract

Recently, the topics of community service activity and civic engagement relative to psychosocial benefits have received considerable attention. The current study addresses the relationship between community service activities, interethnic attitudes and individual perceptions of the value, relevance and importance of community service activities. We hypothesized that as subjects (n=40) participated in a variety of community service related activities, their perception of the overall importance of community engagement and interethnic attitudes (i.e., reductions in ethnocentrism) would significantly increase. A paired-samples t test showed significant increases among topics addressing perceptions of the importance of community service work and improvements among interethnic attitudes (p<.007). Results of the study and suggestions for future research are offered.     

慈善捐赠、公司治理与股东财富

近些年来,越来越多的企业开始从事慈善捐赠,而企业这种利他主义行为会给股东财富带来何种影响却始终没有得到回答。通过研究2008年汶川地震后中国上市公司的捐赠行为,本文发现慈善捐赠对于股东财富来说是一把双刃剑:不论从短期还是长期来看,累计超额回报率均和捐赠排名正相关,表明了慈善捐赠能够提升股东财富;而对于成长性高的公司而言,其捐款的机会成本较高,企业的捐赠活动降低了股东财富。更为重要的是,慈善捐赠对于股东财富的提升仅体现在大股东非绝对控股和机构持股的公司中,说明只有有效的公司治理机制才能够确保企业做出最大化股东财富的捐赠行为。本文的发现为更好地评价和规范企业慈善捐赠活动提供了一定的经验支持。     

Altruistic and Private Values For Saving Lives With an Oyster Consumption Safety Program

We use data from an Internet-based survey and estimate the benefits of an oyster consumption safety policy with the contingent valuation method. In addition to providing a context-specific estimate of willingness-to-pay for oyster safety, we consider an important issue in the contingent valuation mortality risk reduction literature. A number of studies find that willingness-to-pay for mortality risk reduction is not sensitive to the scope of the risk change. We present the scope test as a difference in the number of lives saved by the program, instead of small changes in risk, and find that referendum votes are responsive to scope. A third feature of this article is that we identify those at-risk respondents who would most benefit from the policy and decompose willingness-to-pay into use values and altruistic nonuse values. We find that willingness-to-pay per life saved ranges from $3.95 million to $7.69 million for the private good of lives saved when the respondent is at risk (i.e., use values). Willingness-to-pay per life saved including both use and altruistic nonuse values ranges from $6.89 million to $12.87 million.     

Beneficial Effect of Altruism on Well-Being Among Chinese College Students: The Role of Self-Esteem and Family Socioeconomic Status

ABSTRACT

The motivation for voluntary social service has been identified as altruism. This study aimed to establish the relationship between altruism and well-being in Chinese college students at the undergraduate level. To better understand altruism, two groups were selected, one that used self-reporting and another related to the perception of peers. Self-reported altruism and self-reported decisions to help in real-life situations were measured in the first sample (N₁ = 525); peer-rated altruism was measured in the second sample (N₂ = 189). The results showed (when socially desirable responding was controlled) (1) self-reported altruism and self-reported decisions to help exerted significant direct effects on well-being, while peer-rated altruism did not; (2) self-esteem mediated the effects of self-reported altruism, self-reported decisions to help, and peer-rated altruism on well-being; (3) family socioeconomic status moderated the effects of self-reported altruism on well-being via self-esteem; college students with low family socioeconomic status were more likely to reap benefits from altruism. These findings confirm the emotion-elevating effects of altruism in collectivistic societies like China, which may encourage more people to engage in voluntary social service. Future research should adopt longitudinal or experimental designs with a more nationally representative sample to better confirm these findings.