Improving Voluntary Public Good Provision Through a Non-governmental,Endogenous Matching Mechanism: Experimental Evidence

Social norms can help to foster cooperation and to overcome the free-rider problem in the private provision of public goods. This paper focuses on the endogenous establishment of an average-oriented norm which sanctions deviations from average public good contributions. In a laboratory experiment, we analyse whether subjects are willing to implement a punishment and reward scheme at their own expense by applying the theory of non-governmental norm enforcement put forward by Buchholz et al. (J Public Econ Theory 16(6):899–916, 2014). Based on their theory, which omits a central authority but introduces an endogenously determined enforcement mechanism, we implement a two-stage public good game. In the first stage, subjects determine the strength of the sanctioning mechanism on their own. In the second stage, they decide on their personal contributions to the public good based on the established mechanism. In line with comparable pool punishment experiments, we find that subjects are apparently willing to contribute funds in order to establish a norm enforcement mechanism. Groups over-invest in the mechanism, but this over-investment decreases over time. These investments seem to be driven by the subjects’ previous individual contributions and partly by a number of strategic considerations, i.e. the previous average contribution made to the public good lowers the investment in the sanctioning mechanism. In the second stage of our experiment, higher norm enforcement parameters tend to lead to higher public good contributions. The earnings with the mechanism are on average higher than without.     

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Status,Risk-Taking and Intertemporal Substitution in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper examines intertemporal risk-taking in a stochastically growing economy with externalities in human capital accumulation where agents have preferences for social status. In order to isolate the effects of status concerns on long-run expected growth, the analysis is embedded in a non-expected utility setting, which disentangles the effects from risk aversion and intertemporal substitution. We examine the interaction between status desire and risk, risk aversion and intertemporal substitution. The externalities generated by the status game are able to correct the allocative distortions from the knowledge spillovers.Acknowledgement The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for his valuable comments.     

The Magic of the Personal Touch: Field Experimental Evidence on Money and Appreciation as Gifts*

In this paper, we use two field experiments in professional settings to explore the effort levels of individuals in response to gifts. We extend the literature by looking at non‐financial gifts that signal worker appreciation and gifts that combine financial and non‐financial elements with or without a personal touch. We find that while money and appreciation are individually effective, these only work well together when they are combined with a personal touch. This suggests that responses to gifts are sensitive to the presentation of the gift as well as to interpersonal elements; these are factors that have so far been largely ignored in the literature but are easy to incorporate into existing principal–agent models.     

Versteigerungserlöse aus CO<Subscript>2</Subscript>-Zertifikaten im Spannungsfeld zwischen Bund und Ländern

Die Co₂-Emissionsrechte im Europ?ischen Emissionshandelssystem werden, nachdem sie zun?chst vorwiegend kostenlos verteilt wurden, ab 2013 zunehmend versteigert. Dies führt auch unter Berücksichtigung von Steuerausf?llen durch sinkende Gewinne der Unternehmen zu Einnahmen, die sinnvoll verteilt werden sollten. Klimaschutz- und Anpassungsma?nahmen sind auf verschiedenen Ebenen anzusiedeln.     

Co-creation on a global scale: How customers impact firms’ internationalization strategies

The importance of customers in international strategy has largely been neglected or relegated to the simple and rather passive role of a buyer. In this article, we suggest a different approach and identify the potential impact of co-creation activities. We provide several examples of how customers are more actively involved in global value creation and thereby impact firms’ international posture.     

Inflation Developments in the Euro Area Since the Onset of the Pandemic

There is hope that the Russian war on Ukraine could expedite the energy transition in Europe leading to a new and more environmentally sustainable steady state.

     

Pamela Walker Laird. Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006. xiv + 439 pp. ISBN 0-674-01907-5, $29.95 (paper).

Success is as much about whom you know as it is about what youknow and how you perform. Networks, mentors, and role modelsplay pivotal roles in corporate climbing and entrepreneurship.Although the business lexicon only recently incorporated theseterms into its vocabulary, Pamela Laird convincingly arguesthat these forms of social capital, which she calls pull, havealways helped determine success. Moreover, because they existprimarily among individuals who see each other as belongingto the same cohort, success