Do non-strategic sanctions obey the law of demand? The demand for punishment in the voluntary contribution mechanism

The prospect of receiving a monetary sanction for free riding has been shown to increase contributions to public goods. We ask whether the impulse to punish is unresponsive to the cost to the punisher, or whether, like other preferences, it interacts with prices to generate a conventional demand curve. In a series of experiments, we randomly vary the cost of reducing the earnings of other group members following voluntary contribution decisions. In our design, new groups are formed after each interaction and no subject faces any other more than once, so there is no strategic reason to punish. We nonetheless find significant levels of punishment, and we learn that both price and the extent to which the recipient's contribution is below the group mean are significant determinants of the quantity of punishment demanded. Moreover, punishment is mainly directed at free riders even when it costs nothing to the punisher.     

Willingness to pay and the demand for lotto

The way that unemployment duration affects employment prospects, is investigated using Norwegian micro transition data encompassing detailed accounts of 14 807 unemployed adults. A generalized non-proportional Weibull model is estimated, with two possible exits from the unemployment pool: a job or a labour force exit. On average the probability of obtaining a job is fairly constant at the individual level, while the probability of exiting the labour force increases significantly as unemployment duration is prolonged. For some particular groups of unemployed, there is also a marked negative duration dependence in the probability of obtaining a job.     

A new approach to the demand for public goods

The individual demand for public goods is measured by a new survey research instrument which permits respondents to make hypothetical expenditure and tax recommendations with moveable penny coupons. Because each respondent faces an identical coupon budget constraint, it may be expected that observed expenditure and tax recommendations represent individual maximum utility. The instrument was applied to a random sample of 1000 residents of North Carolina. Statistical analysis of the resultant data indicates significant socio-economic differences in the preferences for particular spending and tax categories.     

Kalman filter approach to estimate the demand for international reserves

A few studies have provided empirical support for the fact that the demand for international reserves experienced structural instability in 1973 and 1979 due to a change in exchange rate system and oil price shocks. Thus, under the current managed float due to exchange rate and oil price fluctuations, coefficient estimates could be time dependent. After showing that indeed, estimated coefficients are time dependent, the Kalman filter estimation method is employed and the reserve demand function for 19 industrial countries estimated. The Kalman filter approach incorporates the time-varying properties of coefficients estimates.     

Experimental approach to the determination of the demand for public goods

The paper proposes a new method of estimating the demand for public goods in view of the ‘free rider’ problem. The idea is to establish an experimental setting in which only a random sample of the population is investigated. Alternative experiments are then proposed with the intent of discovering the true individual demand. First a statistical method is proposed to estimate the bias in response. Then, a random environment is created and it is shown under what conditions a successful elicitation of the demand is possible.     

Determinants of demand for green products: An application to eco-label demand for fish in Europe

In this paper, we confront the theoretical motivations of the consumption of eco-friendly products and the factors influencing the European perceptions regarding the fact that “fish caught using an environmentally friendly technique may carry a special label”. We take advantage of the recent integration of non-economic elements in the microeconomic analysis of consumers' behavior in order to highlight the factors leading to their demand for green products. Thanks to an original European survey on seafood product carried out on more than 5000 consumers, we test the influence of intrinsic motivation, information, localization and socio-economic factors on the demand for an eco-label for fish.Our results show a significant connection between the desire for eco-labeling and seafood features, especially the freshness of the fish, the geographical origin of the fish and the wild vs farmed origin of the fish. Moreover, we prove the major role played by the fish price. We also demonstrate that the ecological issue regarding fisheries is highly connected to consumer information, intrinsic motivation and socio-economic status: the typical “green fish consumer” is a young woman, well educated, well informed on the state of marine resources and not very trusting of the regulation of the fisheries. Consumers who are aware of the importance of marine resource preservation have the same profile.     

On the demand for information

Most previous research on the economics of information has been based on the expected utility hypothesis and Bayesian learning. Yet there is experimental evidence that decision makers do not always maximize expected utility and that human learning is not always consistent with Bayes' rule. Using a two-period model, this paper examines the valuation of information as well as the demanf for information in the broader context of a state preference approach under an ordinal representation of preferences. In particular, it is not assumed that the decision maker is Bayesian, nor that he behaves in a way consistent with the expected utility hypothesis. In this general framework, the value of information is defined and analysed. Also, under active learning, the optimal allocation of information gathering activities is discussed. Behavioural properties of the demand for information are derived making use of a compensation function. Implications of the results for measuring the value of information and for the economic analysis of learning activities are discussed.     

Methods for estimating the population contribution to environmental change.

"This paper introduces general methods for quantitative analysis of the role of population in environmental change. The approach is applicable over a wide range of environmental issues, and arbitrary regions and time periods. First, a single region is considered, appropriate formulae derived, and the limitations to quantitative approaches discussed. The approach is contrasted to earlier formulations, and shown to avoid weaknesses in a common approximation. Next, the analysis is extended to the multiple region problem. An apparent paradox in aggregating regional estimates is illuminated, and the risk of misleading results is underscored. The methods are applied to the problem of climate change with two case studies, an historical period and a future scenario, used to illustrate the results. The contribution of change in population to change in green house gas emissions is shown to be significant, but not dominant in both industrialized and developing regions."     

Assessing the technology contribution to value added

Technology and knowledge are two key components for economic growth; however, the two concepts are not consensually defined. This paper proposes a model to assess and quantify the technology contribution to the value-adding process. The methodological approach implied building an operational concept for technology that is independent of the concepts of knowledge and capital. As such, technology could be interpreted and quantified as an input parameter in a new production model. This model interprets and assesses, separately, the value contributions of the uses of technology, of knowledge and of capital in a production process, defining the Technology Index for that process. The model is applied to manufacturing sectors of seven European countries, quantifying their respective dependences on technology. A comparison of the Technology Index proposed here is made with the OECD's Technology Intensity factor, arguing that the former reflects the technology dependence better that the latter. Accordingly, a criterion for classifying the economic sectors' dependence on technology is proposed. A main contribution from this study is an objective classification criterion for technology dependence of firms and economic sectors. It also provides an easy benchmark procedure for knowledge and capital dependence between firms and sectors.     

Gender and the demand for medical care

The consumption of a set of diverse medical services is analysed in an effort to determine the sources of high utilization by women.Unlike previous studies of gender and the demand for medical services,the range of services investigate allows us to draw conclusions about the influence of physicians as agents.We use a modified version of the almost-ideal demand model in the emperical analysis which,unlike the double-log quadratic, or linear demand models, is consistent with constraints imposed by economic theory.Through decomposition of the variance, it was found that if women reported the same series of health indicators as men. their use of most services would fall below that of men.     

Experimental approach to the determination of the demand for public goods: A comment

The paper argues that the Kurz experiments to elicit demand schedules for public goods will yield biased information if they are repeated. An alternative procedure is proposed.     

On adaptation and the demand for health

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impacts of adaptation to failing health. This is done by integrating adaptation processes in a Grossman type of pure consumption model. Model simulations show that adaptation affects the health variables by lowering the incentives to invest in health, as well as smoothing the optimal health stock path over the life cycle. Whether or not the risk of mortality is an object of choice has important effects when studying adaptation, as well as for the joint development of the health variables.     

Endogenous fluctuations in the demand for education

Abstract. Enrollment rates to higher education reveal a quite large variation over time which cannot be explained by productivity shocks alone. We develop a human capital investment model in an overlapping generations framework that features endogenous fluctuations in the demand for education. Agents are heterogeneous in their beliefs about future wage differentials. An evolutionary competition between the heterogeneous beliefs determines the fraction of the newborn generation having a certain belief. Costly access to information on the returns to education induces agents to use potentially destabilizing backward looking prediction rules. Only if previous generations experience regret about their human capital investment decisions, will agents choose a more sophisticated prediction rule that dampens the cycle. Access to information becomes key for stable flows to higher education. RID="*" ID="*"We would like to thank Cars Hommes, Florian Wagener, seminar participants at the University of Amsterdam, participants of the workshop on ‘Skill Needs and Labor Market Dynamics’ at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) for helpful discussions, and an editor of this Journal and three anonymous referees for their comments. Tuinstra's research is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under a MaG-Pionier grant. Neugart acknowledges financial support from the German Ministry of Education. Parts of the research were done while Tuinstra was visiting the WZB and when Neugart was visiting CeNDEF. Correspondence to: The research for this paper was done while the first author was affiliated with the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.