Welfare Ranking of Environmental Policies in the Presence of Capital Mobility and Cross‐Border Pollution

We construct a model of two regions with cross‐border pollution, and with inter‐regional (regional capital mobility [RCM]) or international (international capital mobility [ICM]) capital mobility. Each region uses emission taxes, or intra‐regionally, or inter‐regionally tradable emission permits to reduce pollution. We show that the non‐cooperative settings of all three instruments are always inefficient relative to their cooperative settings. When regions are symmetric, then (i) with RCM the non‐cooperative setting of intra‐regionally tradable emissions permits is welfare superior to that of the other two instruments, (ii) with ICM the non‐cooperative settings of intra‐regionally tradable emission permits and of emission taxes are equivalent and superior to that of inter‐regionally tradable emission permits, and (iii) with ICM the three instruments are equivalent only when cross‐border pollution is perfect.     

Trust among the Avatars: A Virtual World Experiment,with and without Textual and Visual Cues

We invited “residents” of a virtual world who vary in real‐world age and occupation to play a trust game with stakes comparable to “in‐world” wages. In different treatments, the lab wall was adorned with an emotively suggestive photograph, a suggestive text was added to the instructions, or both a photo and text were added. We find high levels of trust and reciprocity that appear still higher for non‐student and older subjects. Variation of results by treatment suggests that both photographic and textual cues influenced the level of trust but not that of trustworthiness.     

An Experimental Analysis of Trust and Trustworthiness

We report results from experiments analyzing trust and trustworthiness, which are components of social capital and have an impact on diverse economic phenomena. We conduct a within-subjects experiment where subjects participate in both the trust game and the dictator game and find that transfers in the trust game are higher and are motivated by expected reciprocation. Subjects in our experiment exhibit positive reciprocity. We find that trustworthiness in the trust game implies trust but not vice versa. Trustworthy subjects are also more generous in the dictator game. Finally we explore gender differences in behavior and find that men are more trusting than women but there are no significant gender differences in reciprocal behavior.     

An Honest Day's Pay: Cooperation among Entrepreneurs vs. Students,and Linkages to Real‐World Business Success

The importance of cooperative behavior in business environments has been theorized in the field of management. However, measuring cooperation quantitatively is often challenging. We take advantage of experimental methods to overcome this issue. Particularly, we study the decisions that small‐scale entrepreneurs in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, make in a laboratory property rights dilemma experiment, comparing these to the decisions of student counterparts in the same and other countries, and looking for correlations between lab decisions and success in real‐world business sales. We find that Mongolian entrepreneurs generally achieve much higher cooperation levels and hence higher experimental earnings than Mongolian students. Also, among individual participants, producing and desisting from theft in the lab setting is correlated at the 1% level with real‐world business sales. Our findings align with the view that cooperative impulses or abidance of social norms can be an advantage in business relationships.     

Getting to Know You: Trust Formation in New Interfirm Relationships and the Consequences for Investments in Management Control and the Collaboration

Trust is often posited to substitute for management control in interfirm transactions. However, this raises questions of how trust arises in new relationships, and whether trust that is not based on prior experience transacting together is sufficient to persuade managers to forgo investments in management controls. We use an experiment to test whether two features of the early stage of an interfirm relationship influence a buyer's initial trust in a supplier and have consequences for subsequent investments in management controls and in the collaboration. These two features are the autonomy of the buyer's manager to choose a supplier (i.e., delegation of decision‐making authority) and the supplier's willingness to share information with the buyer. We find that the buyer manager's initial trust in the supplier is associated positively with both the autonomy to choose the supplier and the supplier's willingness to share information. Information content and supplier characteristics are held constant, so these results are novel and distinct from prior studies of the antecedents of trust. We find that higher initial trust is associated with reduced expenditures for management controls and increased investments in the collaboration. Thus, we conclude that delegation of decision‐making authority and supplier information‐sharing behavior in the early stages of a relationship influence the formation of initial trust, which has real consequences for investments in management control and in the collaboration.     

Cooperation,defection and resistance in Nazi Germany

This article uses the court records of a sample of individuals, aged between 15 and 62, tried for high treason in Nazi Germany to analyze a rare, real-world prisoner's-dilemma-like scenario that resisters faced once taken into custody: keep quiet and protect their collaborators or turn informant in the hope of obtaining leniency? We find that, although self-interest and defection to the authorities was the norm for most, significant rates of cooperation remained. We also find evidence that the size of the stake, age, education, beliefs, affiliations, and sense of community could play roles in facilitating cooperative behavior.     

Audit Hours and Unit Audit Price of Industry Specialist Auditors: Evidence from Korea

Higher audit fees associated with auditor industry specialization could represent higher unit price charged by industry specialist auditors (ISAs) or the provision of a greater quantity of audit services. This study exploits a field setting in Korea, where the disclosure of audit hours is required in company annual reports, and finds that ISAs charge significantly higher total audit fees but also expend significantly greater audit hours than non‐ISAs. When audit fees and hours are considered together, the unit audit price of ISAs is significantly lower than that of non‐ISAs. This indicates that higher total audit fees associated with ISAs are likely to be attributable to greater audit hours associated with ISAs. However, greater audit hours for ISAs may suggest higher audit quality or may simply indicate that the additional audit work performed by ISAs is conducted by relatively cheaper junior auditors. Our work provides an alternative explanation for the higher total audit fees documented in the previous studies.     

Motives for Giving: A Reanalysis of Two Classic Public Goods Experiments

Experimental work in economics prompted the development of theories of other‐regarding behavior. In this article we reanalyze two classic public goods experiments and focus on the nature of individuals' responses to others' behavior in order to help distinguish alternative motives for giving, including altruism, warm glow, reciprocity, and inequality aversion. Analysis that allows for asymmetric feedback responses generates support for inequality aversion motives but little for reciprocity (matching), altruism, and warm glow. We conclude that individual‐level analysis of existing public goods data can provide more insightful, informative estimates of treatment effects.     

区域产业集群内多企业间合作激励机制分析——以温州商会为例

运用重复博弈理论分析区域产业集群内多企业间合作形成的合作激励机制,认为能威慑到有不合作或背叛动机的企业从欺骗均衡转到合作均衡,激励企业间走向制度化合作。分析温州产业集群内的商会组织,发现集群内多个企业受理性驱使经过多次重复博弈可以有效地限制了潜在交易企业的不诚实行为,激励集群内所有企业走向制度化合作,增进企业整体利益,提升区域产业集群的竞争力。     

Collaborating with Competitors: How Do Small Firm Accounting Associations and Networks Successfully Manage Coopetitive Tensions?*

The “coopetition” paradox exists when two or more organizations are simultaneously involved in cooperative and competitive interactions. In the accounting industry, small firms encounter coopetition when they align themselves with other independent firms to form accounting associations and networks (AANs). AANs are a type of interorganizational relationship (IOR) that provide opportunities for member firms to collaborate by sharing important resources such as expertise, best practices, and manpower. However, member firms also compete in the marketplace for clients and human capital, which incentivizes uncooperative and opportunistic behavior. If managed inadequately, coopetitive tensions can significantly hamper AAN benefits and may lead to IOR failure. Given the considerable longevity of AANs, we interview 42 high‐level accounting professionals to understand AANs' apparent successful management of these tensions. Leveraging coopetition and IOR theory, our analysis suggests that transactional mechanisms (contractual agreements, organizational structure, selection/monitoring processes) and relational mechanisms (trust, social ties, reciprocity) play key roles in encouraging healthy cooperation and competition among member firms. One of our main conclusions is that these mechanisms contribute to AAN success because they are leveraged comprehensively across each IOR life cycle phase, and they are mutually reinforcing, with transactional mechanisms providing the foundation to inspire confidence and encourage the development of relational mechanisms. Our research enriches existing accounting and coopetition literature, provides a new perspective for AANs, and responds to calls to understand key factors of IOR success.     

Emporiophobia (Fear of Markets): Cooperation or Competition?

Widespread emporiophobia (fear of markets) has important policy implications, since it leads voters to demand anti‐market policies. There are many reasons for this anti‐market attitude; however, economists could reduce emporiophobia if we stressed cooperation rather than competition in writings and policy discussions. In a sample of introductory textbooks, competition is mentioned on average eight times as often as cooperation. The fundamental economic unit is the transaction, and transactions are cooperative. The benefit of a market economy—increased consumer surplus—comes from cooperation through transactions, not from competition. Competition in a market economy is competition for the right to cooperate. Competition is important because it guarantees that the best cooperators will win and because it establishes the efficient terms for cooperation, but cooperation is fundamental. For most people, competition has negative connotations since it focuses on losers, while cooperation implies a win–win situation. Other implications involve the morality of the market, “giving back,” and characteristics of market failures.     

The Relation Between Earnings Management and Non‐GAAP Reporting

Managers have a variety of tools at their disposal to influence stakeholder perceptions. Earnings management and the strategic reporting of non‐GAAP earnings are just two of the available menu choices. We explore how real earnings management and accruals management influence the probability that a company will disclose a non‐GAAP adjusted earnings metric in its earnings press release and the likelihood that it will do so aggressively. We first investigate situations where managers already meet analysts’ expectations either based on strong operating performance or after employing real and accruals management. We find that when solid operating performance alone allows firms to meet expectations, managers do not employ earnings management or non‐GAAP reporting. However, when managers meet expectations using real and accruals management, they are significantly less likely to report a non‐GAAP earnings metric. Next, we explore scenarios where companies fall short of expectations. We find that when they just miss expectations after managing GAAP earnings, they are significantly more likely to employ non‐GAAP reporting, suggesting that the timing and relatively costless nature of non‐GAAP reporting allows managers to appear to meet expectations on a non‐GAAP basis when managed GAAP earnings fall short. Moreover, we find that companies are more likely to report non‐GAAP earnings (and to do so aggressively) when (i) they are unable to use real or accruals earnings management, (ii) are constrained by prior‐period accruals management, and (iii) their operating performance is poor. Taken together, our results are consistent with a substitute relation between non‐GAAP reporting and both real and accruals management.     

‘Crooks,thieves, and receivers’: transaction costs in nineteenth‐century industrial Birmingham1

The existence of cooperation and trust between competing economic agents is taken for granted by much of the literature on industrial districts. This article explores the structure of the Birmingham jewellery‐making district and the problems created by the opportunistic behaviour of many of its members. Archival sources show that the district was plagued by endemic dishonesty and that proximity did not generate trust and cooperation. The absence of barriers to entry into the trade created a district where social sanctions could not be used to reduce moral hazard. All these factors threatened to destroy the district during the crisis of the 1880s. The article shows how firms joined together to create the Birmingham Jewellers Association, to establish and enforce ‘rules of the game’, with the aim of reducing transaction costs.     

An experimental study of intra- and international cooperation: Chinese and American play in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

We study whether intra- and international groups have different cooperation rates in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game. We report on an experiment in which university students in China and America engage in a single iteration of the game, complete belief elicitation tasks regarding their counterparts' play, and complete a survey including attitudinal measurements regarding their in- and out-group attitudes. We find that Chinese overall cooperation rates are less than American ones. Further, female participants are more cooperative than males. With respect to international cooperation, Chinese participants accurately estimate the likelihood of cooperative behavior of their American counterparts, while Americans overestimate the same likelihood of their Chinese counterparts. Our results further show that Chinese participants cooperate more conditionally than American ones. Finally, we find a more positive attitude towards one's living country is related to less international cooperative behavior, and a more positive attitude towards the other country is related to more international cooperation.     

"一带一路"民心相通的理论建构及路径选择

民心是最大的政治,民心相通是国际关系中最基础、最坚实、最持久的互联互通.民心相通是共建"一带一路"沿线国家及民众之间通过相互交流与合作,在自律、互信的基础上,不断增进彼此之间的集体认同,从而构建人类命运共同体的过程.从建构主义的视角来看,民心相通是基于观念的社会建构,也是"一带一路"沿线国家之间实践活动的结果.从相互依存、共同命运、同质性、自我约束等四个主变量出发建立分析框架,有助于自我与他者之间实现对话沟通,建立信任,进而建构基于国家之间友好的集体认同,逐步内化人类命运共同体理念.从建构主义路径出发,推进"一带一路"民心相通要从深化战略互信、增强共同利益、促进人文交流等方面着手进行.     

Coordinating Effort under Team‐Based and Individual Incentives: An Experimental Analysis*

This paper explores the behavior of workers in an environment where it is efficient to engage in the mutual exchange of help. Experimental data show that output and workers' payoffs are greater under team‐based incentives than under individual incentives in an environment where coordination is difficult. However, when the environment is more conducive to coordination (that is, a setting where agents interact repeatedly), output and payoffs are greater under individual incentives. Manipulation of the amount of mutually observable information provides evidence that team‐based incentives, relative to individual incentives, create a more difficult coordination problem for workers and that cooperation requires a richer informational environment.     

Horizon‐Induced Optimism as a Gateway to Earnings Management

Recent work in accounting suggests that managerial optimism can lead managers to escalate income‐increasing earnings management. In this paper, I examine how a fundamental attribute of the earnings management setting—the amount of time between the earnings management decision and the future reversal—serves as one potential source of managerial optimism. I conduct two experiments to test whether the amount of time between the earnings management decision and the future reversal systematically induces optimism that increases participants’ propensity to engage in behavior that is analogous to accruals‐based earnings management and to real earnings management, holding constant incentives, agency frictions, and the information environment. My results indicate that, independent of their innate optimism, the time between the earnings management decision and the future reversal likely encourages managers to overestimate their ability to compensate for current‐period earnings management through strong future performance. This optimism, in turn, likely increases managers’ propensity to engage in both forms of earnings management.     

Ill‐Defined versus Precise Pre‐Play Communication in the Traveler's Dilemma

This article reports results from an experiment comparing the effects of vague versus precise pre‐play communication in a highly competitive two‐player game with conflicting interests. In the classic Traveler's Dilemma, non‐binding precise messages about intent of play are pure cheap talk. We conjecture that a form of imprecise pre‐play communication whereby subjects can submit ill‐defined messages may help foster cooperation because of their vagueness. Comparing behavior both across modes of communication and to a baseline case without communication, we find that cooperation is highest when players can communicate using precise numerical messages. When communication with ill‐defined messages is allowed, then conditional on receiving a message, subjects act more cooperatively than when no message is received. However, overall, the ability to exchange ill‐defined messages does not substantially improve cooperation.     

人类合作之谜:群体选择及其演化仿真研究

基因-文化共同进化塑造了人类物种。专业化和分工是人类独特的生存策略和行为模式,一系列先天心理倾向和文化本能等基础性适应器发展出来,通过组织和市场交换支持这种生存策略和行为模式。群体选择是驱动人类合作的主导力量。普莱斯方程揭示了群体间选择与群体内个体选择的净效应如何导致合作的进化。本文基于普莱斯方程的数值模拟和演化仿真发现,尽管非合作策略在"群体内个体选择"中占优,而在考虑"群体间选择"的净效应是合作策略占优。把合作行为收益b作为测度合作剩余的平均项,演化仿真发现,群体中合作者频率越高、平均适应度越大,都会导致所需b值降低,而当迭代次数越多,所需b值增加;合作者成本成倍增加时,所需最小b值是成倍增加;当加入促进合作的"执行机制"(迭代后的合作者频率乘1.001),所需b值降低。利己和利他作为主观行为动机在很多场合不具备第三方不可证实性,而合作和非合作则在人类实际生活和实验室实验中具有第三方可证实性,因此本文纠正传统上利己、利他这一对具有误导性的概念,提出将"合作行为"替换"利他主义行为","非合作行为"替换"利已主义行为",使群体选择理论在解释人类合作秩序的涌现时更具一般性。     

Development of the township‐village enterprises and the re‐instttutionalization of the family in China*

Small farms, which have maintained flexibility throughout history, have long existed in China and the so‐called “family household system as a cooperative organization” comprehensively playing a diverse socio‐economic function has developed. In addition, trust derived from a unique environment based on a village structure where a few families dwell not to mention “everyone knows each other well” has also become institutionalized. In this setting, a complex and multi‐dimensional property rights could have developed. Moreover, the Confucian order, historically institutionalized in China, has differentiated the respective roles of the public from the private and the center from the local through a network intertwined by relationships (guanxi‐based network), allowing them to be relatively autonomous from each other (embedded autonomy). This institutional tradition of the Chinese society has re‐emerged with the coming of the reform age. The reform reintroduced the revival of the traditional family household, as a cooperative unit for the insiders and, at the same time, as a competitive unit against the outsiders; and its renewed close relationship with the local governments have given birth to the township‐village enterprises. Based on reforms of this nature, which have occurred from the bottom and approved by the center state ex post, China was able to experience the implementation a new form of transition to capitalism, i.e., rural industrialization. In this process, China's guana‐based township‐village enterprises were able to secure the fitness to react to market competition despite their collective ownership nature.