An interactional perspective on perceived empowerment: the role of personal needs and task context

This study examines the influence of individual needs and task characteristics on a multifaceted definition of perceived empowerment using an interactional perspective. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees and most of them lower-level or nonmanagerial level workers in business organizations. We used regression analyses to test a number of hypotheses informed by social psychology theories. The significant findings indicate that perceived empowerment is predicted by individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power), task situations (receipt of task feedback, competency-based reward system, participation in goal setting) and their interactions. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.     

Product differentiation and the gains from trade under Bertrand duopoly

Abstract.  In the literature on the welfare effects of free trade under imperfect competition, one important case seems to have been overlooked, and that is the Bertrand duopoly model with differentiated products. Although many authors have analysed the welfare effects of free trade under Cournot duopoly and demonstrated the possibility of losses from trade, there has been no thorough analysis of the welfare effects of free trade under Bertrand duopoly. In this article we present a thorough analysis of the welfare effects of free trade under Bertrand duopoly with differentiated products, and it is shown that there are always gains from trade. JEL Classification: F12     

A Theory of Constitutional Standards and Civil Liberty

Why would potentially intolerant majorities in a democracy protect the rights of unpopular groups? This paper models the formation of legal standards that determine the extent of civil liberty in a society. It is shown that tolerant legal standards emerge over time, despite all individuals having intolerant preferences. Each period citizens choose activities that have social consequences. A majority vote determines which of these activities are legally protected. Because of errors in interpreting the symbolic content of these activities, voters from the majority will not impose excessively intolerant standards, otherwise they may end up severely punishing members of their own group by mistake.
Extending this framework to a dynamic model, we examine Markovian equilibria of the game when government improves with time in its ability to correctly interpret citizens' activities. These improvements allow an unchanging majority to impose increasingly intolerant standards over time. It is shown that societies with high political turnover due to population changes are apt to choose tolerant legal standards. Societies with low turnover are more apt to choose more intolerant and unstable ones. Each group seeks to prevent auditing capabilities of government from improving too much over time in order to prevent future majorities from successfully enforcing more intolerant standards.     

On the dynamic selection of mechanisms for provision of public projects

How do individuals' spatial decisions affect the institutions for public goods provision over time? This paper describes a dynamic model in which the provision mechanism for a public project is itself the object of locational choice of individuals. Individuals in an ongoing society must choose between a location with a Majority Rule mechanism and one with a Voluntary Contribution mechanism. Each mechanism determines a funding decision for a local public project which is repeated over time. Generations of individuals asynchronously supercede their ‘parents’, creating an entry/exit process that allows individuals with possibly different beliefs to enter society. A self-confirming equilibrium (SCE) belief process describes an evolution of beliefs in this society consistent with a self-confirming equilibrium (Fudenberg and Levine, 1993) of the repeated location/provision game. It is shown that the process with belief mutation as new individuals enter society results in a globally absorbing state in which the Majority Rule mechanism is the unique survivor of the two.     

Second Best Redistributive Policies: The Case Of International Trade

The paper presents a brief review of recent work that focuses on the normative economics of international trade. In a Heckscher–Ohlin-like economy, with skilled and unskilled workers, the available redistributive tools (that include income taxation) are not powerful enough to allow the separation of efficiency and equity issues, and "production efficiency" is no longer desirable. At a social optimum that calls for redistribution toward the unskilled workers, the social value of the unskilled intensive good is necessarily smaller than its production price. This finding allows us to unify existing results and suggests conjectures.     

The Organization of Innovation Brokers: An International Review

Research on networks of innovation has typically focused on relationships of competition and collaboration between firms in the network, sometimes extending the analysis to sources of new ideas such as universities. More recently, attention has been paid to the activities of intermediaries in such networks, which facilitate the innovation process, which are positioned between the sources and users of innovations. This paper focuses on the organization of a distinctive type of intermediary, which we have defined as an innovation broker, by providing an analysis of 10 case studies of organizations dedicated to innovation broking from around the world. Innovation brokers in our definition are organizations that are founded especially to undertake an intermediary role, rather than performing that role as a by-product of their principal activities. The results of this analysis suggest that the key role played by innovation brokers in the innovation process is the independent validation of new ideas, thereby facilitating diffusion. In order to carry out this task, innovation brokers are organized on a not-for-profit basis, typically as a public-private partnership. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for innovation theory and research in networks of innovation.