Monitored by your friends,not your foes: Strategic ignorance and the delegation of real authority

In this laboratory experiment we study the use of strategic ignorance to delegate real authority within a firm. A worker can gather information on investment projects, while a manager makes the implementation decision. The manager can monitor the worker. This allows her to exploit any information gathered by the worker, but also reduces the worker's incentives to gather information. Both effects are influenced by the interest alignment between manager and worker. Our data confirm the prediction that optimal monitoring depends non-monotonically on the interest alignment between managers and workers. Managers also show some preferences for control that seem to be driven by loss aversion. We also find mild evidence for hidden benefits and costs of control. However, behavioral biases have only limited effects on organizational outcomes.     

Verifying the betweenness axiom with questionnaire evidence,or not: Take your pick

Data are presented from questionnaires about preferences over hypothetical lotteries. The answers either support or reject the betweenness axiom, depending on which questions are picked.     

Structure and understanding: Some observations on current activities in the field of structural modeling

Structural modeling has been under study in recent years as a method for dealing with complex societal problems, and is growing in acceptance as a tool for understanding complex social phenomena. Structural models demonstrate the interactions of the separate elements of a system and their combined overall effect. Thus, the nature of the problem for which this method of analysis is appropriate is different from complex problems of the traditional disciplines which lend themselves to reductionist approaches. This is because complex policy problems of society cannot be “solved” with precise analysis. Kenneth Boulding suggests that there are two ways to cope with a complex policy problem, either to “slice” the problem into partial equilibrium sections or “squeeze” it by aggregating numerous variables into a single index or macho variable. Structural modeling is an approach which comes under the general strategy of squeezing the problem and is promising because of the ability to include a range of macro variables which provide insights about social change. The articles in this issue treat several interesting aspects of this approach. In this article we wish to recall for consideration a central purpose for developing such methods. We have taken a historical approach to indicate some of the roots of the concern for the effect of technological process on social change. Within this context, we discuss the nature of the contributions made by the articles in this issue and what promise the methods offer to addressing the historical concern.     

对十六大报告中有关经济问题的理解与思考

党的十六大报告中,有两部分的内容涉及我国经济理论、经济工作和经济生活的方方面面。其中有不少新的提法和新的思路,需要我们深入研究和很好地理解与把握。     

Regulatory compliance,information disclosure and peer effects: evidence from the Mexican gasoline market

Policy makers and regulators are increasingly interested in the use of information disclosure as a regulatory instrument to improve firms’ behavior. However, little has been done using micro-level data to investigate whether information provision may trigger peer influence among firms that affects their compliance behavior. Using station-level inspection verification data from the Mexican gasoline market, this paper examines whether gas stations react to peers’ performance to adjust their own compliance decisions. The information disclosure policy assigned each inspected gas station with green, yellow, or red colors to indicate the status of compliance, minor violation, and severe violation, respectively. We find strong evidence of peer influence triggered by information spillover. The probability of being in compliance increases as the number of “green” peers increases. We use both municipalities and postal codes as geographic boundaries to define potential peers, and find similar results. Our findings also suggest that the magnitude of peer effects varies across municipalities: the effects appear to be greater in wealthier, more educated communities.     

Keep up with the winners: Experimental evidence on risk taking,asset integration,and peer effects

The paper reports the result of an experimental game on asset integration and risk taking. We find some evidence that winnings in earlier rounds affect risk taking in subsequent rounds, but no evidence that real life wealth outside the experiment affects risk taking. Controlling for past winnings, participants receiving a low endowment in a round engage in more risk taking. We test a ‘keeping-up-with-the-Joneses’ hypothesis and find that subjects seek to keep up with winners, though not necessarily with average earnings. Overall, the evidence suggests that risk taking tracks a reference point affected by social comparisons.     

The minority ethic: Rethinking religious denominations,minority status,and educational achievement across the globe

We test whether major religious denominations correlate with education in a uniform way across the world and the extent to which minority status contributes to the correlation. Using individual data from the World Values Survey for 77 countries, we first find that no denomination is consistently associated with education and, in fact, for each denomination we study there are countries where its correlation with education is significantly positive, significantly negative, or statistically insignificant. To explain this unexpected result, we relate our first finding to minority status and find that denominations that are a minority in a given country positively correlate with the level of education of their followers in that country. Both findings uphold a series of robustness checks, including changing the definition of minority religions, excluding outliers, and changing the measure of education.     

Parental background,educational attainments and returns to schooling and to marriage: the case of Israel

This paper investigates the effect of family background attainments and on returns to own and wife's schooling, for Jewish males Israel. Three dimensions of paternal background are referred to: father's education, the prestige of the father's occupation, and whether the father is of a western origin (an advantage in the western-oriented Israeli society). For each of these types of segmentation it is found that both the level of and the returns to own and wife's schooling (after some years of marriage) are higher for those coming from a more favourable background.

These empirical findings are consistent with an investment in schooling model in which differences in demand (productivity of own and wife's schooling) vary more than differences in supply of investment funds.     

Whatever you say, your reputation precedes you: Observation and cheap talk in the trust game

Behavior in trust games has been linked to general notions of trust and trustworthiness, important components of social capital. In the equilibrium of a trust game, the investor does not invest, foreseeing that the allocator would keep all of the returns. We use a human-subjects experiment to test the effects of changes to the game designed to increase cooperation and efficiency. We add a pre-play stage in which the investor receives a cheap-talk message from the allocator, observes the allocator's previous decision, or both. None of these changes alter the game's theoretical predictions. We find that allowing observation results in substantially higher cooperation and efficiency, but cheap talk has little effect.     

经济增长与技术进步：古典、新古典与新剑桥

古典、新古典与新剑桥的理论均由实物经济的分析视角研究了技术进步对经济增长的影响和作用.但是宏观经济是一种总量的货币量值的经济.因此,已有理论关于经济增长与技术进步的解释存在相当大的差异.要改变这种现象,必须综合三种研究范式重新构建一种货币经济的增长理论.     

Inflation in the USA,UK and Australia:Some Comparisons*

USA, UK and Australian wage inflation experiences during the post-World-War-II period are examined principally within the framework of the long-run Phillips curve model. Attention is drawn to the sensitivity of wage rate changes to retail price level changes and to the possibility of a temporal change in this relationship. The analyses of these countries are compared so as to highlight similarities and differences.     

面试作伪行为：概念、形成机制及影响因素

近些年,随着面试在人才选拔中的广泛应用,一些蓄意歪曲、虚假表现的欺骗性行为也应运而生,给组织带来了诸多负面影响。面试作伪的概念源自于印象管理,是多种因素共同作用的结果。其未来的相关研究应侧重于形成机制、干预措施、对组织的作用机制,以及跨文化比较研究。     

Costs,knowledge and market structure: understanding the puzzle of international competitiveness with Greek export data

This is an analysis of the sources of international competitiveness with Greek export data for the period 1987–2007. The framework used in the study incorporates factors that do not only represent cost competitiveness but also shed light on the determinants of economic complexity. Economic complexity is the amount of knowledge capabilities embodied in exports that indicates – as a source of comparative advantage – the ability for product differentiation and product variety. The empirical analysis shows that industries benefit substantially from their own R&D activity but, owing to weak economic complexity in the country, there are no cross-industry knowledge spillovers (both at national and international level) that can benefit export activity. Greek exports were found to be sensitive to relative unit labour costs (RULC) but the most important export component of this index is relative labour productivity and not labour cost. Not all institutional arrangements have the same impact on exports, for example high trade union density might harm competitiveness but this factor is uncorrelated with R&D investment. In the view of these findings, Greece’s route to international competitiveness should be primarily by improving its economic complexity, making sure that the country specialises in productive activities that enrich its knowledge capabilities as well as increase the potential of knowledge transfer.     

Private information, money, and growth: Indeterminacy, fluctuations, and the Mundell-Tobin effect

We introduce an informational asymmetry into an otherwise standard monetary growth model and examine its implications for the determinacy of equilibrium, for endogenous economic volatility, and for the relationship between steady-state output and the rate of money growth. Some empirical evidence suggests that, for economies with low initial inflation rates, permanent increases in the money growth rate raise long-run output levels. This relationship is reversed for economies with high initial inflation rates. Our model predicts this pattern. Moreover, in economies with high enough rates of inflation, credit rationing emerges, monetary equilibria become indeterminate, and endogenous economic volatility arises.     

Railway transport liberalization in the European Union: Freight,labor and health toward the year 2020 in Spain

The year 2010 is a key year for European railway transport as it marks the liberalization of the railway sector in a context of economic crisis. The railway sector is a driving force behind the economy of any country. In the case of Spain, in particular, the sector is undergoing a process of liberalization following large public investments that have provided the country with one of the most extensive high-speed railway networks in Europe. Using a methodological approach that seeks a balance between future studies and constructivist studies on the interaction between technology and society, we examine the present and future consequences of railway transport liberalization, in the case-study of Spain, focusing on a key aspect of the process: changes in occupational health and safety conditions in a sector that must ensure full passenger, worker and freight safety. Through a comparison of actual risks, perceived risks and foreseeable risks, we analyze the main shortcomings of the liberalization model that is currently being implemented and strategies for dealing with foreseeable risks in a scenario of change.     

Redistribution, fertility, and growth: The effect of the opportunities abroad

This article analyzes the effect of the opportunities abroad on the growth path that a small open economy, in which redistribution policy in favor of less prosperous segments takes place, is expected to follow. The model shows that redistribution policy raises fertility among the unskilled recipients, lowers fertility among the contributing skilled, slows human capital accumulation, and reduces per-capita output growth. The paper demonstrates that the opportunities abroad determine the share of income redistributed and ultimately induce the offspring of the unskilled to invest in human capital and decrease their family size.     

Agricultural productivity,the real effective exchange rate,and structural change: Some evidence from Africa

Agriculture is thought to play a number of roles in the early development process. All of these roles involve fostering non‐agricultural development, in particular manufacturing. It is argued in this paper that agriculture plays a role that has hitherto been ignored. Specifically, if agricultural labor productivity increases faster than manufacturing labor productivity, the real effective exchange rate will depreciate. This depreciation of real effective exchange rate occurs because in very poor countries agriculture makes up the dominant share of both GDP and employment. The depreciation also makes it easier for a country to expand the production of tradables relative to nontradables, with manufacturing being the main tradable. This proposition, which as agricultural labor productivity increases relative to manufacturing labor productivity the real effective exchange rate depreciates, is tested using data drawn from 10 sub‐Saharan African countries.     

Co-integration,error correction and the Fisher effect: a clarification

The presence of co-integration between interest rates and inflation implies the existence of an error-correction model and the possibility of two sources of causation. Causality testing which does not account for feedback through the error-correction mechanism as well as through the error-correction mechanism as well as through the lagged changes in the variables can produce misleading reuslts. Reinterpreting Atkin' error-correction model and causality tests in this framework points to a feedback relationship between inflation and post-tax nominal interest rates. These findings are consistent with previously published results but are in contrast to Atkinsapos; conclusion of one-way causality from inflation to interest rates.     

Matthew effect,capabilities and innovation policy: the Argentinean case

The purpose of this paper is to test the presence of Matthew effects in different types of public funding for innovation – non-refundable grants, subsidized loans and tax credits. According to the literature, Matthew effect refers to the impact of past accessing to public funds on reputation, which increases the probability of accessing in the present. The dataset is made of 966 firms that accessed the Technological Argentinean Fund (FONTAR), main instrument to foster innovation in Argentina, during 2007–2013 – 3300 observations. Results confirm the existence of Matthew effects: past accessing to FONTAR increases the probability of accessing in the present, but only when different instruments are taken altogether. Then, Matthew effect is positively associated with the diversification of access to promotional instruments rather than the repeated access to one type of funding tool. Additionally, results show that firm’s innovation investments, R&D activities, and human resources, explain the increase in probability of accessing, which provides evidence regarding the presence of capability effects. All of this suggests that once the firm enters the system of public funding, it remains with an active innovative behaviour, not just because of reputation effects, but because it has accumulated capabilities in the pursuit of a technological advantage.