Strength of the Social Dilemma in a Public Goods Experiment: An Exploration of the Error Hypothesis

We present the results of an experiment on voluntary contributions to a public good with a unique dominant strategy equilibrium in the interior of the strategy space. The treatment variable is the equilibrium contribution level. By increasing the equilibrium contribution level, we reduce the strength of the social dilemma. Though we observe that the average level of contribution rises with the equilibrium contribution level, the average rate of over-contribution is not affected in a systematic way. Over-contribution is statistically significant only at the lower level of equilibrium contribution but not at the higher levels. We show that the Anderson et al. (1998, Journal of Public Economics. 70, 297–323) logit equilibrium model which combines altruism and decision errors fits quite well our laboratory data.     

生态文明建设视域下社会治理创新研究

党的十八大报告明确指出:"面对资源约束趋紧、环境污染严重、生态系统退化的严峻形势,必须树立尊重自然、顺应自然、保护自然的生态文明理念,把生态文明建设放在突出地位,融入经济建设、政治建设、文化建设、社会建设各方面和全过程,努力建设美丽中国,实现中华民族永续发展。"文章首先强调了从生态文明建设的视角研究社会治理创新的重要性,然后论证了生态文明建设与社会治理创新二者之间的关系。紧接着从社会治理理念的更新是生态文明建设的内在要求、社会治理领域的拓宽是生态文明建设的必然选择、社会治理主体的扩大是生态文明建设的重要力量等方面探讨了生态文明视域下推进社会治理创新的路径。文章认为,只有按照生态文明建设的要求推进社会治理创新,才能进一步完善社会治理体制机制,推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化,实现生态文明建设与社会建设的良性互动。     

社会组织的事中事后监管改革：实践、困境与对策

为适应新时代下"放管服"行政管理改革和激发社会组织活力的双重要求,我国社会组织管理体系面临着从偏前端审批向注重事中事后全面监管的改革与转型。通过对江苏Z市的实践分析,发现当前推进社会组织事中事后监管改革中存在着分类监管欠缺、多部门监管标准欠统一、监管方式失衡和社会化监管不足等困境问题,据此提出相应的化解对策。     

我国社会保障制度改革的两难困境和选择

我国目前社会保障制度改革陷入了进退两难的境地,其主要原因是社会保障资金紧缺.解决制约社会保障制度改革的现实问题,可以进一步推进社会保障制度的完善.本文提出解决社会保障制度改革困境的对策,即提高企业的经济效益,扩大社会保障资金的筹资渠道,分步骤提高法定退休年龄.     

腐败的困境:腐败本质的一项实验研究

腐败作为人类社会的一大毒瘤而普遍存在于各国的各个历史阶段,破坏社会正义且阻碍经济发展。然而,时至今日我们对腐败本质的认识仍然是滞后的,流行的委托代理的分析框架不足以为反腐败实践提供足够的指导。腐败本质上表现为一定群体的社会困境问题。在经典的贿赂博弈实验背景下,本研究使用实验方法考察了当群体面临"集体失败"风险的腐败决策。研究结果表明,由于个体理性与集体理性的冲突,实验中普遍的腐败行为导致群体陷入平均收益低于无腐败收益的"腐败的悲剧"。本文还对性别、风险态度、信任水平、腐败信念、亲社会性等个体特征在腐败行为的影响进行了考察。     

The Social Shaping of the Participation of Employees in Environmental Work within Enterprises - Experiences from a Danish Context

The paper deals with the shaping of the participation of employees in environmental work within enterprises. The paper is based on two case studies on Danish enterprises, which, as part of the development of their environmental work, emphasized employee involvement. The cases show that it is difficult to maintain the participation of employees in environmental work, even in enterprises with an intention to do so. The cases contribute to the identification of those situations during the shaping of environmental work in an enterprise where choices concerning employee participation are made: (1) The need of management to involve employees in the environmental work; (2) The competence building among employees and local supervisors; and (3) The stabilization of the environmental work into routines and structures. The theoretical approach draws on organizational theory emphasizing the connection between environmental strategies, measures and competence needs, and the shaping of the participation of employees as social processes formed by the existing culture and the pressure generated by the preventive environmental work.     

Social Security Strategies and Redistributive Effects in European Social Transfer Systems

This paper evaluates the linkage between social security strategies and redistributive effects in EU social transfer systems. It is argued that the various European systems produce different patterns of redistribution that may be explained by the adoption of different mixes of social security strategies. In support of this argument, several ideal-typical strategies are characterized and a classification of European social transfer systems is introduced. Subsequently, the redistributive effects of the systems are assessed and the relationship to their class assignment is investigated. We conclude that the redistributive effects differ markedly between systems of different classes, indicating that redistributive patterns are heavily influenced by the adopted strategy mix.     

Groundwater Management in a Food Security Context

This article analyzes the sustainability of market-based instruments such as tradable permits for the management of a renewable aquifer used for irrigated agriculture. In our dynamic hydro-economic model, a water agency aims at satisfying a food security constraint within a tradable permit scheme in the presence of myopic heterogeneous agents. We identify analytically the viability kernel that defines the states of the resource yielding inter-temporal feasible paths able to satisfy the set of constraints over time and the associated set of viable quota policies. We then illustrate the theoretical results of the paper with numerical simulations based on the Western La Mancha aquifer.     

Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education

We develop a model that shows that, at the Nash equilibrium, the outcome of each individual embedded in a network is proportional to his/her Katz–Bonacich centrality measure. This measure takes into account both direct and indirect friends of each individual, but puts less weight to his/her distant friends. We then bring the model to the data using a very detailed dataset of adolescent friendship networks. We show that, after controlling for observable individual characteristics and unobservable network specific factors, a standard deviation increase in the Katz–Bonacich centrality increases the pupil school performance by more than 7% of one standard deviation.     

社会系统中个体和群体行为及其计算实验研究的分析范式

提出了一套基于计算实验、可用于研究机制设计和最优控制等问题的分析范式,分析了群体状态对个体行为的影响方式,探讨了个体相互作用对群体状态的影响,提出了系统处于临界状态时的分析框架,指出运用计算实验方法研究社会系统中的特定问题有助于理解现实生活中个体行为与群体表现的关系。     

中小企业履行社会责任的优势及其社会效应

企业社会责任是新的管理理念.有鉴于企业社会责任的内涵,应对中小企业履行社会责任困境的成因进行深入分析,探讨中小企业承担社会责任方面的优势,以表明中小企业主动承担社会责任有利于企业的持续发展.     

Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Demmert/Klein Experiment: Another Attempt at Creating the Proper Context

Friedrich Hayek conjectured that the free enterprise system is the most effective in making discoveries, and Israel Kirzner refines the conjecture by saying that profit opportunities evoke entrepreneurial discovery. Demmert and Klein (2003) present the first attempt to demonstrate the Hayek/Kirzner conjecture. On the whole, Demmert and Klein (2003) classify the results as disappointing but fruitful. In contrast we argue that additional experimental evidence might yield a demonstration of the conjecture. We continued the diligence and good-faith effort started by Demmert and Klein (2003) to devise an experimental setting that would create a genuine context for entrepreneurial discovery, yet the conjecture eludes our efforts at controlling the experiment. We duplicated the experiment at a Business School in Germany, with two simple variations. First, Demmert and Klein (2003) recruited only male students. We include male and female students. Second, Demmert and Klein (2003) used a payment schedule that includes a flat rate for participation and additional earnings depending on the presented performance. We drop the flat rate and slightly reduce the earnings per unit outperformance. Our results show that overall money matters. Our results are rather like those of Demmert and Klein (2003) and do not seem to be influenced by a baseline payment. Moreover, there are gender specific divergences showing male students earning significant higher additional earnings than their female fellow students.     

Economics in Context

Academic departmentalization has limited the dimensionality and thus the richness of analysis in the social sciences. The author examines the case of a modern economics as an example. He reviews the ideas of Williamson (2000), who cites the limits of scope in the New Institutional Economics; Buchanan, who lays bare the ethical foundations of political economy in his constitutional economics; and Adam Smith, whose moral philosophy reflects a fully dimensional analysis. The author cites examples of how modern economic analysis can be enhanced by a reintegration with the other social sciences.     

When a Precedent of Donation Favors Defection in the Prisoner's Dilemma

Abstract. In this paper, we examine the question of whether a collective activity can influence cooperation in a subsequent repeated one‐shot prisoner's dilemma (PD) game. We conduct two series of experiments. The first consists of control experiments in which 30 periods of a PD game are played, with a random rematching of the pairs in every period. In a second series of experiments, subjects first play a donation game (DG) and then the PD game. In the DG, they collectively discuss the amount of a donation to a given charity, before putting the question to an individual and anonymous vote. Cooperation levels in the PD games preceded by the DG are significantly lower than those observed in the control experiment.     

产业转型中的就业困境

本文通过产业价值链分析,指出在原有的国际产业分工格局下,中心、外围国家的产业人才需求与劳动力供给存在明显的不匹配.对此,本文运用均衡匹配搜寻模型,以产业因素变量和搜寻成本变量作为解释变量,将就业匹配变量内生化,运用比较静态方法分析表明:提升产业适应系数、降低搜寻成本可以提高搜寻效用.产业转型是中心、外围国家分别解决就业问题的根本途径是:发达国家进行再工业化,发展中国家从依靠要素投入到依靠生产效率提高转变.     

社会组织承接政府购买服务中参与式预算的实践困境与机制突破

社会组织承接政府购买服务是提升公共服务效能,推进社会治理体系与治理能力现代化发展的重要举措。但是在服务承接过程中存在浪费、低效以及腐败等问题。实践证明,引入参与式预算将对问题的化解起到积极作用。但是,通过我国当前政策设置和相关案例比较发现:公民参与不足、社会组织自主性不强、政府职能转变不到位以及各相关主体之间的合作不够和角色不清等,是导致社会组织承接政府购买服务参与式预算效果不好的关键问题。问题解决需要从整体性视角切入,在政府、社会组织以及受助民众之间建立一个供需管三侧联动的机制。供需管三侧联动机制明确了各主体的责任、角色,并从公共精神角度,融合三者的共同目标。同时,在机制构建中,进一步加强党的领导和建设以及发挥人大监督和审批的重要作用。