Voluntary Contributions to Multiple Public Projects

The problem of financing a set of discrete public goods (facilities, projects) by private contributions is studied. The corresponding cooperative game, the realization game , is shown to be convex. For the noncooperative setting we study a realization scheme that induces a strategic game. This contribution game is shown to be a generalized ordinal potential game ; a best–response in the contribution game implies a best response in a coordination game in which the payoff to all players is the utilitarian collective welfare function, i.e., the sum of the utility functions of the players. Strategy profiles maximizing utilitarian welfare are strong Nash equilibria of the contribution game. Each strong Nash equilibrium corresponds in a natural way with a core element of the realization game, and vice versa. Moreover, each strong Nash equilibrium is coalitional proof.     

Conditional Cooperation and Voluntary Contributions to Public Goods

We compare a partners condition , where the same small group of subjects plays a repeated public good game, to a strangers condition , where subjects play this game in changing group formations. From the first period onward, subjects in the partners condition contribute significantly more to the public good than subjects in the strangers condition. Strangers' contributions show continual decay, while partners' contributions fluctuate on a high level prior to decreasing in the final periods. We interpret subjects' behaviour in terms of conditional cooperation which is characterized by both future-oriented and reactive behaviour.
JEL classifications: C 91; C 92; H 41     

Getting the Ball Rolling: Voluntary Contributions to a Large-Scale Public Project

This paper examines dynamic voluntary contributions to a large‐scale project. In equilibrium, contributions are influenced by the interplay of two opposing incentives. While agents prefer to free ride on others for contributions, they also prefer to encourage others to contribute by increasing their own. Main findings of the paper are that (1) agents increase their contributions as the project moves forward; (2) as additional agents join the group, existing agents increase their contributions in the initial stages of the project while reducing them in the stages close to completion; (3) groups that are formed by more patient agents and that undertake larger projects tend to be larger; and (4) groups that rely on voluntary contributions tend to be too small compared to the social optimum. The empirical evidence on contributions to open‐source software projects provides partial support for these findings.     

Weak Moral Motivation Leads to the Decline of Voluntary Contributions

We develop a model that accounts for the decay of the average contribution observed in experiments on voluntary contributions to a public good. The novel idea is that people's moral motivation is “weak.” Their judgment about the right contribution depends on observed contributions by group members and on an intrinsic “moral ideal.” We show that the assumption of weakly morally motivated agents leads to the decline of the average contribution over time. The model is compatible with persistence of overcontributions, variability of contributions (across and within individuals), the “restart effect” and the observation that the decay in contributions is slower in longer games. Furthermore, it offers a rationale for conditional cooperation.     

Maintaining the Common Pool: Voluntary Water Conservation in Response to Varying Scarcity

Studies of voluntary conservation response to changing information about an environmental problem have traditionally been synonymous with studies of information campaign effectiveness. As such, they have not been able to capture the response to actual changes in the environment. This paper takes a novel approach to identifying voluntary conservation by studying the impact of changing storage levels on urban water usage in the context of a prolonged drought and a highly ’water aware’ community. Our results suggest that voluntary conservation increases substantially when water is scarce and the public value of the savings is greatest. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of environmental information campaigns in general, and urban water demand management in particular.     

Gender Disparity in Access to the Rwandan Mutual Health Insurance Scheme

While there is a body of research on the gendered penalties of user fees within health systems in low-income countries, what is less well understood is the gendered experience of community-based health insurance (CBI) programs, which have replaced user fees for basic healthcare. This study examines the uptake of a Rwandan CBI scheme five years after the program was scaled up nationwide. Using the Enquete Intégrale sur les Conditions de Vie des ménages de Rwanda (EICV2) for 2005–6, the study finds evidence that members of female-headed households are less likely than those of male-headed households to be enrolled in the CBI program. Additionally, it finds strikingly different patterns of equity effects of CBI by gender of household head by examining consumption income and wealth. These findings suggest the need for greater attention to equity, particularly gender equity, concerning the way in which voluntary CBI programs are initially implemented and evaluated.     

Efficient Equilibria in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism with Private Information

We characterize generally the Bayesian Nash equilibria of a voluntary contributions public goods game for two consumers with private information.The two consumers simultaneously make voluntary contributions to the public good, and the contributions are refunded if the total falls short of the cost of the public good. Several families of equilibria (step‐function, regular and semi‐regular) are studied. Necessary and sufficient conditions for regular and semi‐regular equilibrium allocations to be interim incentive efficient are derived. In the uniform distribution case we prove (i) the existence of an open set of incentive efficient regular equilibria when the cost of production is large enough and (ii) the existence of an open set of incentive efficient semi‐regular equilibria when the cost of production is low enough. Step‐function equilibra are proved to be interim incentive inefficient.     

相互制保险在我国农业保险中的适用性分析

相互制保险公司是保险企业的主流组织形式之一,在国际保险市场上占有重要地位.分析了相互制保险的独特优势,并结合我国农业保险发展的实际情况,对相互制保险在我国农业保险发展中的适用性进行了深入的探讨.     

Conservation: From Voluntary Restraint to a Voluntary Price Premium

This paper investigates how concern for the environment translates into predictable patterns of consumer behavior. Two types of behavior are considered. First, individuals who care about environmental quality may voluntarily restrain their consumption of goods and services that generate a negative externality. Second, individuals may choose to pay a price premium for goods and services that are more environmentally benign. A theoretical model identifies a symmetry between such voluntary restraint and a voluntary price premium that mirrors the symmetry between environmental policies based on either quantities (quotas) or prices (taxes). We test predictions of the model in an empirical study of household electricity consumption with introduction of a price-premium, green-electricity program. We find evidence of voluntary restraint and its relation to a voluntary price premium. The empirical results are consistent with the theoretical model of voluntary conservation.      

Mutual Enmity: Deposit Insurance and Economic Democracy

“Symbolic consumption” is formally unrelated to “second-order preferences”, but the ability to symbolically consume and the ability to have preferences about one's preferences are each uniquely human characteristics. The major question addressed in this paper is this: are symbolic preferences more or less likely than other preferences to be “unpreferred” by the agent experiencing and acting upon them? In previous writings on second-order preferences, I demonstrated the propensity of market forces to overproduce preferences that are judged to be worse than what they replace and underproduce preferences that are judged to be better. In this paper, I offer reasons for believing that the market inefficiency in preference production suggests a decline in symbolic consumption.     

宗亲互助与商业健康保险需求

面对"看病难、看病贵",居民可搭配宗亲互助与商业健康保险共同抵御疾病风险。文章利用中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据,从文化和转移支出两个角度研究了宗亲互助对商业健康保险需求的影响。结果表明,宗亲互助能够促进居民的商业健康保险需求,考虑内生性影响后结果依然稳健。半参数双重差分结果显示,宗亲互助能够传递疾病风险感知,促进居民的商业健康保险需求。调节效应表明,在参与宗亲互助的低收入人群中,金融素养高的居民,商业健康保险需求更多。异质性分析表明,城市的保障程度高,宗亲互助对商业健康保险需求的促进作用更加显著;在大多数年龄段,宗亲互助都能显著正向影响居民的商业健康保险需求。文章研究表明,日常生活中宗亲互助与商业健康保险并不是非此即彼,两者搭配成为风险转嫁组合更有利于防止因病致贫、因病返贫。     

Value Orientations, Income and Displacement Effects, and Voluntary Contributions

Identifying the value orientations of subjects participating in market or non-market decisions by having them participate in a ring game may be helpful in understanding the behaviour of these subjects. This experiment presents the results of changes in the centre and the radius of a value orientations ring in an attempt to discover if the measured value orientations exhibit income or displacement effects. Neither significant income effects nor displacement effects are identified. An external validity check with a voluntary contribution game provides evidence that value orientations from rings centred around the origin of the decision-space explain significant portions of voluntary contributions while value orientations from displaced rings do not.     

Mutual Insurance,Individual Savings,and Limited Commitment

We examine a dynamic model of mutual insurance when households can also engage in self-insurance by storage. We assume that there is no enforcement mechanism, so that any insurance is informal and must be self-enforcing. We show that consumption allocations satisfy a modified Euler condition and that an enhanced storage technology can either improve or diminish welfare. Furthermore we show that the ex ante transfers introduced into dynamic informal insurance models recently by Gauthier et al. (Gauthier, C., Poitevin, M., and González, P. (1997). Journal of Economic Theory76, 106–144) are only used here in the first period, with the role of ex ante transfers being replaced by differential individual storage. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C61, C73, D90, E21.     

Dynamic Voluntary Contribution to a Public Project

We consider the dynamic private provision of funds to projects that generatepublic benefits. Participants have complete information about theenvironment, but imperfect information about individual actions: each periodthey observe only the aggregate contribution. Each player may contribute anyamount in any period before the contributing horizon is reached. All Nashequilibrium outcomes are characterized. In many cases they are all alsoperfect Bayesian equilibrium outcomes. If the horizon is long, if theplayers' preferences are similar, and if they are patient or the periodlength is short, perfect Bayesian equilibria exist that essentially completethe project. In some of them the completion time shrinks to zero with theperiod length—efficiency is achieved in the limit.     

Voluntary Contributions with Risky and Uncertain Marginal Returns: The Importance of the Parameter Values

Previous research indicates that risky and uncertain marginal returns from a public good lower contributions significantly. This paper presents experimental results showing that this effect depends on the employed parameterization.     

Voluntary contributions to a joint project with asymmetric agents

We revisit Admati and Perry (1991)'s model of voluntary contributions to a joint project. Their main result that equilibrium contributions are small appears not to be robust to the introduction of asymmetries.     

美日互助保险公司监管及其对中国的启示

美国和日本对互助保险公司的监管立法相对都比较完善,但两国监管重心有所不同,监管程度也存在明显差异。借鉴美日互助保险公司监管的经验,中国对互助保险公司的监管应基于规定互助保险公司的设立条件、限制互助保险公司的经营范围,明确互助保险公司的资金运用及盈余分配等方面进行考虑。