Crowdfunding for the development of smart cities

In recent years, many cities have experienced new forms of collaboration that have an impact on citizens and entrepreneurs. The integration of this field of study with civic crowdfunding can influence economic growth and community building, which may be beneficial for both policymakers and practitioners alike. Civic crowdfunding is a financial model through which citizens, in collaboration with government and local authorities, fund projects to provide a community service. The development of smart cities is related to civic engagement, empowerment, and participation intended to be part of crowdsourcing or entrepreneurial activities. In this sense, cities play a vital role as drivers of (open) innovation and entrepreneurship. Based on these considerations, this study proposes an explorative and qualitative approach to investigate the civic crowdfunding phenomenon and its ability to promote community development. Our exploratory analysis of six projects highlights the challenges and opportunities of civic crowdfunding for the creation, development, and improvement of more inclusive cities.     

The term structure of cross-sectional dispersion of expectations in a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment

In this paper, we present the results of a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment (LtFE) where we eliciting short- as well as long-run expectations regarding the future price dynamics in markets with positive and negative expectations feedback. Comparing our results on short-run expectations with the LtFE literature, we prove that eliciting long-run expectations has no impact on the price dynamics nor on short-run expectations formation. In particular, we confirm that the Rational Expectation Equilibrium (REE) is a good benchmark only for the markets with negative feedback. Interestingly, our data show that while the term structure of the cross-sectional dispersion of expectations is convex in positive feedback markets, it is concave in negative feedback markets. Differences in the slope of the term structure stem from diverse degrees of uncertainty regarding the evolution of prices in the two feedback systems: (1) in the negative feedback system, the convergence of the price to the REE reflects a tendency for coordination of long-run expectations around the fundamental value; (2) conversely, oscillatory price dynamics observed in the positive feedback system is responsible for the diverging pattern of long-run expectations. Finally, we propose a new measure of heterogeneity of expectations based on the scaling of the dispersion of expectations over the forecasting horizon.

     

Voluntary contributions in a system with uncertain returns: a case of systemic risk

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - This paper investigates systemic risk that emerges from the interplay between uncertain returns to individual actions, uncertainty on...     

Multivariate approach to evaluate the relationship among geophysical and geochemical variables during an unrest period at Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy)

Campi Flegrei is a caldera in Southern Italy, which has manifested signs of significant unrest in the last years. Indeed, during volcanic crises, the ground of Campi Flegrei caldera begin to grow steadily, the earthquake swarms become more common and strong variations in the chemical composition of fumaroles are observed. In the Campi Flegrei volcanic area there is a spread ground deformation monitoring network. In the years 1983–1985 the bradiseism showed an increasing trend of ground uplift with a fairly fast velocity. In the following years (1986–2014) the phenomenon tends to decrease: the earthquakes number is near to zero, the vertical ground displacement decreases, the fumaroles modify the gas emissions, the soil temperature decreases. The main object of this study is to evaluate, by means of variables comparison, in a counterclockwise periods, the relationship among geochemical data of fumaroles, earthquakes and ground deformations, to discover which variables can be considered signals (geochemical indicator) of the bradyseismic events during an unrest period.

     

Intragroup competition in public good games: The role of relative performance incentives and risk attitudes

We analyze a public good game (PGG) with intragroup competition in which, generally but not always, the dominant strategy is to not contribute; therefore, free riding is the unique Nash equilibrium, not achieving Pareto efficiency. We propose a PGG setup where subjects' contributions are rewarded with different individual returns following a rank‐order voluntary contribution mechanism. It is found that the resulting competition for a better return significantly increases contributions. This effect is sensitive to the salience of return differences rewarding higher contributions. Furthermore, the positive effect of return differences on contribution levels depends on an individual's return‐to‐risk sensitivity as elicited through an independent risk elicitation task.