Demand for decision autonomy and the desire to avoid responsibility in risky environments: Experimental evidence

This paper experimentally studies individuals’ willingness to pay for the authority to make risky decisions for themselves, and the willingness to take responsibility for others, as primary determinants of leadership willingness. We consider a setup involving a pair of individuals, where one individual is designated to make both parties’ decisions by default. Depending on treatment, either party can express a willingness to pay to change this situation. If one’s willingness to pay to make her own decision herself is positive (negative), we interpret it as a demand for autonomy (a desire to delegate). On the flip side, if one’s willingness to pay to avoid making a decision on behalf of another person is positive (negative), we interpret it as a desire to avoid responsibility (a demand for authority). We find that on average, individuals are willing to pay positive amounts of money to make their decisions themselves, and incur positive but smaller opportunity costs for the right to make decisions for others. Certain individual and contextual characteristics emerge as important predictors. Notably, (1) men are more likely to demand both autonomy and authority at the same time, (2) individuals with other regarding preferences are more likely to pay to avoid taking responsibility for others’ decisions when the probability of loss is high. Exploring differences between individuals’ own decisions and the decisions they make on behalf of others, we find that subjects with other-regarding preferences tend to “cautious-shift” when making decisions on behalf of others. Also, we find that individuals who would like to avoid responsibility also tend to “shift” their decisions when put in a decision-making role. The results have implications for the allocation of decision-making authority in pairs and leadership.     

The Organization of Supplier Networks: Effects of Delegation and Intermediation

In a one‐principal two‐agent model with adverse selection and collusion among agents, we show that delegating to one agent the right to subcontract with the other agent always earns lower profit for the principal compared with centralized contracting. Delegation to an intermediary is also not in the principal's interest if the agents supply substitutes. It can be beneficial if the agents produce complements and the intermediary is well informed.     

岩仓使节团及其对日本现代化的意义

岩仓使节团是世界史上异乎寻常的国家使节团,它对日本现代化既产生了积极影响也产生了消极影响。日本的“小国心理”与“忧患意识”、“自卑意识”使其善于主动学习和接受外来先进文化,并较早形成了国家理性。而当时我国的“大国意识”则使自己固步自封并缺乏国家理性。     

论甘肃代表团赴藏对改善民国政府与西藏地方关系的作用

本文以甘肃代表团赴藏为中心,来探讨民国初年中央政府与西藏的关系发展,甘肃代表团的赴藏是在动荡加剧的情况下,中央政府主动改善与西藏地方的关系,使得中央与地方关系有所好转,因此1919年甘肃代表团的赴藏,虽是中央与西藏关系的发展史上的惊鸿一瞥,却耐人寻味,值得仔细揣摩研究。     

Lying through others: Does delegation promote deception?

How do agency relationships affect an individual’s willingness to lie for monetary advantage? Does lie aversion decline if a lie (or truth) is sent through an agent, rather than sent directly by the individual? In a recent paper, Erat (2013) shows that a significant proportion of his subjects prefer to delegate a deception decision. We present experiments designed to focus on one of several possible explanations for this intriguing behavior – that delegation reduces lie aversion. The experiments reveal that subjects are more willing to lie through a delegate than to lie directly despite controlling for potential effects of delegated decision-making on preferences over payoffs, probabilities of actions, and/or the desire to avoid taking a decision.     

关于科学发展观的思考

科学发展观是对马克思主义发展观的坚持和发展、继承和创新,是新世纪新阶段的新发展观,牢固树立和全面落实科学发展观具有重大而深远的意义。本文对科学发展观丰富的内涵、提出的现实依据、历史依据、理论依据、时代依据及其重大理论和实践意义作了多视角的深层思考。     

A Model of Delegated Project Choice

We present a model in which a principal delegates the choice of project to an agent with different preferences. The principal determines the set of projects from which the agent may choose. The principal can verify the characteristics of the project chosen by the agent, but does not know which other projects were available to the agent. We consider situations where the collection of available projects is exogenous to the agent but uncertain, where the agent must invest effort to discover a project, where the principal can pay the agent to choose a desirable project, and where the principal can adopt more complex schemes than simple permission sets.     

1935—1937年中共驻共产国际代表团新论

在充分查证大量历史文献的基础上,深入考察了1935—1937年中共驻共产国际代表团在宣传中国革命、组建抗日民族统一战线和领导东北抗日斗争中发挥的作用。明确指出,虽然在此期间王明和康生一直担任代表团正副团长,但是与此前四年的情况相比,这两个人在代表团内一统天下的局面已经被打破,经过井冈山、长征和东北实际斗争考验锻炼的国内同志逐渐在代表团取得了主导地位,代表团积极拥护以毛泽东为核心的党中央。这一时期的代表团虽然也存在着缺点错误,但是不足以抹杀其发挥的重要历史作用。     

Le fan comme travailleur : les activités méconnues d’un coproducteur dévoué

We can no longer take fans to be mere consumers of art and entertainment. Given their wide range of involvement (fan clubs, street teams, digital communities…), they are producers as well. In this respect, fans are not just an economic resource but also a work force. Various forms of cooperation between fans and the “cultural industry” are examined. Attention is drawn to their limits and to the consequences in this branch of the economy, which is undergoing a crisis.     

Team incentives and leadership

We study, experimentally, how two alternative incentive mechanisms affect team performance and how a team chooses between alternative mechanisms. We study a group incentive mechanism (team output is shared equally among team members) and a hierarchical mechanism (team output is allocated by a team leader). We find that output is higher when a leader has the power to allocate output, but this mechanism also generates large differences between earnings of leaders and other team members. When team members can choose how much of team output is to be shared equally and how much is to be allocated by a leader they tend to restrict the leader’s power to distributing less than half of the pie.