Heterogeneous treatment effects and mechanisms in information-based environmental policies: Evidence from a large-scale field experiment

Policymakers often rely on non-pecuniary, information-based programs to achieve social objectives. Using data from a water conservation information campaign implemented as a randomized controlled trial, we estimate heterogeneous household responses. Understanding such heterogeneity is important for improving the cost-effectiveness of non-pecuniary programs, extending them to other populations and probing the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise. We find little evidence of heterogeneous responses to purely technical information or to traditional conservation messages that combine technical information and moral suasion. In contrast, norm-based messages that combine technical information, moral suasion and social comparisons exhibit strong heterogeneity: households that are wealthier, owner-occupied and use more water are more responsive. These subgroups tend to be least responsive to pecuniary incentives. We find no evidence that any subgroup increases their water use in response to the messages. By targeting the messages to subgroups known to be most responsive, program costs could be reduced by over 50% with only a 20% reduction in the treatment effect. Combining theory and data, we also shed light on the mechanisms through which the treatment effects arise, which has implications for program design and future research on the program's welfare effects.     

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A MICROECONOMIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

This paper provides a review of the theoretical and empirical literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Depending on whether an individual can be considered as selfish, or whether she has also social preferences, motives for CSR, can be explained in different ways. Furthermore, we explicitly highlight the influence of different Corporate Governance System on CSR as well as the relationship between firms' size and social commitment. Because it is difficult to distinguish between different theories in empirical studies, we argue that an experimental approach might be suitable to test theories of CSR.     

THEORY AND EVIDENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY AND ECONOMICS ABOUT MOTIVATION CROWDING OUT: A POSSIBLE CONVERGENCE?

The empirical relevance of motivation crowding out is a controversial issue in economics and psychology. As already pointed out by Frey and Jegen ( 2001 ), this is partly due to the historical development of two distinct and parallel strands of literature that stem from different theoretical traditions, have radically different tenets and therefore, are difficult to reconcile. In this survey, we go back to the details of the debates that took place independently among psychologists and economists, and sketch an integrative interdisciplinary approach likely to favor a more fruitful collaboration between economics and psychology. From this perspective, experimental economics (both field and laboratory) is viewed as a major research field shedding new light on the conditions of relevance of motivation crowding out.     

The promise and peril of dynamic targeted pricing

Dynamic pricing is widely adopted in many industries, such as travel and insurance. These industries are also gaining extensive capabilities in identifying and segmenting customers, partly fueled by the increasing availability of data. It is natural to ask whether firms should take advantage of such developments by charging different prices to different customer segments. If so, under what conditions? We seek answers to these highly managerially relevant questions.We consider a market with two customer segments served by a monopolist. The monopolist can choose among a set of pricing strategies to exploit consumers’ inter-temporal preferences and/or inter-segment variations. At one end of the spectrum, the firm can charge a constant price to all customers, which is called static pricing. At the other end of the spectrum, the firm can charge different prices to different customer segments and vary these prices over time, which is referred to as dynamic targeted pricing. We systematically compare these alternative pricing strategies. We show that dynamic pricing without targeting can be more effective than static targeted pricing when customers are not very forward looking, which corroborates the findings in the empirical literature. Interestingly, we find that the monopolist can be worse off when she adopts targeting in addition to dynamic pricing. We conduct laboratory experiments to test several key model predictions. The studies show that individuals behave in a manner consistent with the predictions of our model.     

基于卫星遥感数据火山灰云识别方法

火山灰云中的颗粒物能够降低能见度,损害航空器的飞行控制系统和机身,威胁飞行安全。火山灰云监测预警的研究对减少航空事故和经济损失具有很重要的作用。卫星遥感方法能有效地监测火山灰云,逐渐成为火山灰云监测的主要手段。介绍监测火山灰云的传感器类型和卫星遥感监测火山灰云的常用方法,并总结了对这些方法在实际运用中的优缺点,重点介绍了美国的ABI-VAA（高级基线成像火山灰算法）。     

周跳探测法在北斗精度定位中的应用研究

介绍了北斗卫星导航系统的发展现状以及北斗卫星的组成,运用载波相位测量卫星信号,得出卫星观测过程中存在卫星周跳现象。在此之后,解析了该卫星导航精度定位的误差来源,一共能够分成三种不同的类型,分别指的是：与该卫星自身有关联的误差;与其信号传播路径有关联的误差;与接收机以及测站有关联的误差。在此步骤结束之后,剖析了周跳的定义与特性,除此之外也分析了周跳对精密定位带来的影响。最终,通过仿真方法得到了有无周跳状况下的高次差法的影响。     

采用COTS器件的低轨星载收发信机设计与实现

在性能、成本和可靠性的多重约束下,采用商用货架（Commercial Off-The-Shelf,COTS）器件设计了一种高性能、低成本星载收发信机。该收发信机的硬件设计不但可同时满足星地和星间应用需要,而且还具有支持多波束、多信道接入的特点。软件设计主要解决了大多普勒频偏条件下的低信噪比解调和变长以太网数据帧的高效处理等问题。地面测试结果表明,在250 kb/s ~ 14 Mb/s信息速率范围内,误比特率低于1.0×10-6时所需的解调信噪比(Eb/N0)不超过2.8 dB,发射信号误差矢量幅度不超过1.9%,高速应用时处理时延可低至3.0 ms。为降低COTS收发信机的可靠性风险,分别在元器件、电路和系统层面进行了有针对性的可靠性保证措施。该设计经过了在轨测试的验证,对其他低轨商业通信载荷的研制有一定的参考价值。     

“北斗”救生终端海上自适应功率退避算法

受海况、浸水、结冰、对星等因素影响,飞行员海上遇险后报位可靠性较低,工作时长较短。为此,提出一种自适应功率退避方法,在对报位影响因素分析基础上,利用深度神经网络,通过对经纬度、高度、俯仰角、方向、加速度、速度、浸水、信号、电量等多维度数据进行学习,拟合出覆冰、浪涌、液面等信号特征与环境特征联想模型,自适应控制信号发射时机,实现功耗的有效控制。试验表明,该方法将通信成功率及工作时长分别由36.3%、6.0 h提升至73.3%、8.6 h。     

Effects of subject pool culture and institutional environment on corruption: Experimental evidence from Albania

This research uses experimental methods to investigate whether subject pool culture and institutional environment have an effect on participants’ corrupt behavior in the laboratory. While we find that subject pool culture does not affect the overall magnitude of corruption of laboratory participants, it does affect the likelihood of corruption and its distribution. Additionally, we find that the effect on corrupt behavior differs with the framing of the experiment’s instructions. Interestingly, in the context of a weak rule of law and high levels of corruption, loaded negative instructions positively affect corrupt behavior of firms and public officials. Previous research in the context of a country exhibiting a strong rule of law and low levels of corruption finds no framing effects. We also find that increasing the probability of detection significantly reduces corruption as measured by the amount of the bribes offered/accepted and the probability of offering/accepting a bribe. Finally, we find that individual risk preferences negatively affect the level of corrupt behavior.     

In CEOs we trust: When religion matters in cross-border acquisitions. The case of a multifaith country

This paper examines the emergence of trust by multifaith target-firm personnel in foreign acquirer CEOs during early post-acquisition integration, a decisive period for acquisition success, yet considerably under-researched. Combining self-categorization and similarity-attraction theories, we argue that religious similarity with the foreign acquirer’s CEO represents shared values to the personnel, from which trust in the CEO arises. Further, we scrutinize the moderating effects of the personnel’s religiosity and prior alliance success between the acquirer and target firm. We test our model using field-experimental data from 411 multifaith Malaysian personnel. The findings show that personnel-leader trust occurs more readily with religious similarity than religious dissimilarity, and that the personnel’s religiosity strengthens this relationship. However, a successful prior alliance does not weaken the religious similarity–trust relationship. Our research encourages acquisition managers to consider religion, a factor beyond the traditional acquisition playbook, as a trust antecedent during early post-acquisition integration.