Asymptotic efficiency of the demand revealing mechanism

It is shown that the demand revealing mechanism creates only a negligibly small undesired deficit, when the number of participants in the decision group in question is sufficiently large. Since the size of deficit is a measure of inefficiency and since the former is inevitable, the states result demonstrates the approximate optimality of the mechanism.     

A conceptual model of how people adopt recreation activities

This paper reports an investigation of the process which mediates between preoccupations and interests and the point at which a specific recreational activity is adopted. In conceptualizing this process, a phenomenological approach is utilized with three series of interviews. The practical application of the model was also explored, using a written questionnaire. Four necessary and sufficient conditions: opportunity, knowledge, favourable social milieu and receptiveness, are identified. The concept of a key event is used to explain how these are integrated, often being modified in the process, so as to result in adoption when a satisfying experience is anticipated.     

Capturing Collaborative Challenges: Designing Complexity-Sensitive Theories of Change for Cross-Sector Partnerships

Systems change requires complex interventions. Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) face the daunting task of addressing complex societal problems by aligning different backgrounds, values, ideas and resources. A major challenge for CSPs is how to link the type of partnership to the intervention needed to drive change. Intervention strategies are thereby increasingly based on Theories of Change (ToCs). Applying ToCs is often a donor requirement, but it also reflects the ambition of a partnership to enhance its transformative potential. The current use of ToCs in partnering efforts varies greatly. There is a tendency for a linear and relatively simple use of ToCs that does limited justice to the complexity of the problems partnerships aim to address. Since partnership dynamics are already complex and challenging themselves, confusion and disagreement over the appropriate application of ToCs is likely to hamper rather than enhance the transformative potential of partnerships. We develop a complexity alignment framework and a diagnostic tool that enables partnerships to better appreciate the complexity of the context in which they operate, allowing them to adjust their learning strategy. This paper applies recent insights into how to deal with complexity from both the evaluation and theory of change fields to studies investigating the transformative capacity of partnerships. This can (1) serve as a check to define the challenges of partnering projects and (2) can help delineate the societal sources and layers of complexity that cross-sector partnerships deal with such as failure, insufficient responsibility taking and collective action problems at four phases of partnering.     

The Fatter the Tail, the Fatter the Climate Agreement

International climate negotiations take place in a setting where uncertainties regarding the impacts of climate change are very large. In this paper, we examine the influence of increasing the probability and impact of large climate change damages, also known as the ‘fat tail’, on the formation of an international mitigation agreement. We systematically vary the shape and location of the distribution of climate change damages using the stochastic version of the applied game-theoretical STACO model. Our aim is to identify how changes to the distributional form affect the stability of coalitions and their performance. We find that fatter upper tails increase the likelihood that more ambitious coalitions are stable as well as the performance of these stable coalitions. Fatter tails thus imply more successful, or ‘fatter’, international climate agreements.     

Early Retirement Behaviour in the Netherlands: Evidence From a Policy Reform

In the early 1990s the Dutch labour unions and employer organisations agreed to transform the generous and actuarially unfair early retirement (ER) schemes into less generous and actuarially fair schemes that reward individuals for postponing retirement. The starting dates of these new ER programs varied by industry sector. In this study, we exploit this variation in starting dates to estimate the causal impact of the policy reform on early retirement behaviour. We use a large administrative dataset, the Dutch Income Panel 1989–2000, to estimate hazard rate models for the retirement age. We conclude that the policy reform has indeed induced workers to postpone retirement. Both the wealth effect (lower ER wealth) and the substitution effect (lower implicit taxes on retirement postponement) are significant, the latter being more substantial.