The second-order dilemma of public goods and capital accumulation

The second-order dilemma arises from each individual’s incentive to free ride on a mechanism to solve the public goods provision problem (the first-order dilemma). We show by a voluntary participation game that if the depreciation rate is low, public goods can be accumulated through voluntary groups for provision, and that the accumulation is effective in solving the second-order dilemma. This analysis also shows that population growth increases the accumulation of public goods in the long run.     

Covenants with weak swords: ISO 14001 and facilities' environmental performance

Voluntary environmental programs are codes of progressive environmental conduct that firms pledge to adopt. This paper investigates whether ISO 14001, a voluntary program with a weak sword—a weak monitoring and sanctioning mechanism—can mitigate shirking and improve participants' environmental performance. Sponsored by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 14001 is the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. Our analysis of over 3,000 facilities regulated as major sources under the U.S. Clean Air Act suggests that ISO 14001‐certified facilities reduce their pollution emissions more than non‐certified facilities. This result persists even after controlling for facilities' emission and regulatory compliance histories as well as addressing potential endogeneity issues between facilities' environmental performance and their decisions to join ISO 14001. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Why do parties use primaries?: Political selection versus candidate incentives

This paper contrasts empirically two possible explanations for the party decision to use primaries: desire to improve political selection (selection effect), or desire to increase political competition—and incentives—among candidates (incentive effect). Using a simple model of endogenous primaries, I show that each explanation implies a different relation between primary adoption and the strength of partisan support. I estimate this relation using the case of Latin American presidential primaries and find robust evidence that the incentive effect dominates the selection effect.     

Social Esteem and Participation in Contentious Politics: A Field Experiment at an LGBT Pride Rally

What motivates individuals to participate in contentious, political forms of collective action? In this article, I consider the possibility that the promise of social esteem from an ingroup can act as a powerful selective incentive for individuals to participate in contentious politics. I conducted a field experiment—the first to my knowledge to take place in the context of a political march, rally, or social‐identity event—to isolate this esteem mechanism from others. Using measures of intent to attend, actual attendance, and reported attendance at a gay and lesbian pride event in New Jersey, I find evidence that the promise of social esteem boosts all three measures of participation. The article offers new theoretical and practical implications for the study of participation in nonvoting forms of collective action.     

Incentives for pollution abatement: Regulation,regulatory threats,and non‐governmental pressures

In the last decade, voluntary efforts by firms to reduce their environmental impacts have received increasing attention from both policymakers and scholars. This article discusses polluters' incentives to reduce their releases. In particular, using data from Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory, it examines the impacts of conventional regulation, threats of regulation, and non‐governmental pressures facilitated by public dissemination of information about pollutant releases. The vast majority of reductions reported to the inventory to date were found not to be voluntary, as has often been assumed, but are, rather, the result of direct regulation of a relatively small number of polluters. Strong effects of federal regulation were found among other sources, as well, with much weaker responses to the mere threat of regulation. However, of concern are the growth of less visible waste streams—such as land disposal and underground injection—as well as transfers of wastes to other communities. Finally, evidence is reported that some waste streams are increasing in toxicity, an effect that may outweigh the benefits of reductions in releases. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Euvoluntariness and just market exchange: moral dilemmas from Locke’s Venditio

It is a maxim of Public Choice that voluntary exchanges should not be interfered with by the state. But what makes a voluntary market exchange truly voluntary? We suggest, contra much of the economics literature, that voluntary exchange requires consent uncoerced by threats of harm, but that this is not sufficient. In particular, a person pressured to exchange by the dire consequences of failing to exchange—e.g., dying of thirst or hunger—is still coerced, and coerced exchange cannot be voluntary. The weaker party’s desperation gives the other party unconscionable bargaining power. We argue for a distinction, based on a neologism: in the case of coercion by circumstance but not by threat, exchange is still voluntary in the conventional sense, but it is not euvoluntary (i.e., truly voluntary). We will argue that all euvoluntary exchanges are just, while non-euvoluntary exchanges may or may not be unjust; that in competitive markets all exchanges are just, even those that are not euvoluntary, while in bilateral monopolies some exchanges are neither euvoluntary nor just. We will propose a mental device, the “fictitious negotiation”, to determine the just price in non-euvoluntary market exchanges. A primitive version of these ideas can be found in a little known monograph by John Locke, which we will analyze in detail.     

Slavery: a dual-equilibrium model with some historical examples

What sustains slavery, and why at critical junctures—the fall of the Roman Empire, the early modern expansion of plantation agriculture, the later phases of the industrial revolution, the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s—has it often expanded or contracted so rapidly? Why have elites sometimes been united, but sometimes violently divided, over the choice between free and servile labor? Why has slavery usually been ended by legal prohibition rather than voluntary abandonment? An extremely simple dual-equilibrium picture can illuminate how, when, and with whose support slavery is introduced or abolished. Internal divisions over slavery are likely to be most intense as a society approaches either of these “tipping points.” The most striking example, explored fleetingly here, is the US Civil War.     

Sport,civil society and social integration: The case of Norwegian voluntary sport organizations

Abstract

Voluntary sport organizations make up the largest part of voluntary sector in many countries. Yet, in light of the renewed social and political interest in civil society, we do not know very much about how sport organizations operate and function. Accordingly, this article addresses the question of how voluntary sport organizations contribute to social integration through differences in community structures. First a theoretical framework making it possible to distinguish between various forms of community structures—strong, weak, mediated and pragmatic communities—is developed. Then, the first empirical part describes how members in sport organizations belong to such various forms of communities. Next, the article explains differences in social integration through social background, variation in participation in sports and various recruitment channels. Finally, the article explores how differences in community structures matters for the experience of sport activity, for organizational democracy and social capital (trust and political interests).     

The presence of moral hazard in budget breaking

It is possible that a budget breaking incentive scheme may not solve the problem of moral hazard in team production, due to an incentive for a principal to cheat on such an agreement. This is a problem common to incentive schemes which result in an unbalanced budget, which include among them processes designed to reveal demand for public goods. This paper shows the conditions under which cheating is possible, and designs a payment scheme for the principal which is free of any cheating incentive.     

Debt,Corruption, and State Identity: Lessons from Eighteenth-Century Political Thought

The subject of national debt raises serious questions concerning state identity. Should a state that has radically altered its constitution be responsible for decisions taken by the previous state? Much hangs on how we characterize the state as a continuous agent. This article explores debates over national debt, state integrity, and corruption in the eighteenth century, the era in which the modern financial-bureaucratic state was in its infancy. Many eighteenth-century writers treated national debt as corrupting; some advocated voluntary default as a manner of laying low the insidious “moneyed interests” usurping political power. But if public debt was attacked by some as the soul of corruption, others saw it as something that had been made possible by—and was a guarantor of—integrity. These controversies reveal a clash of visions of what constitutes state integrity. This same clash is alive in contemporary debates about national debts.     

Central Banker Contracts, Incomplete Information, and Monetary Policy Surprises: In Search of a Selfish Central Banker?

Approaching monetary policy as a principal-agent problemprovides a useful framework for interpreting alternativedelegation schemes. In this paper, we consider theeffectiveness of central banker incentive schemes when theprincipal delegates monetary policy through contracts butremains uncertain about the central banker's responsiveness tosuch schemes. We adopt a simple principal-agent model andassume that the central banker's trade-off between socialwelfare and the incentive scheme is private information. Weconsider two types of central bankers; one who responds to theincentive scheme (``selfish'') and one who does not and onlycares about social welfare (``benevolent''). We demonstratethat when a benevolent central banker accepts a contractdesigned for a selfish central banker, positive inflationsurprises occur and output exceeds its natural rate. Wefurther show that a benevolent central banker with aninflation bias has an incentive to masquerade as selfish.Mechanisms exist that solve that problem by achievingpreference revelation. We consider a simple mechanism indominant strategies that induces the benevolent type eithernot to breach or not to accept the appointment (contract) inthe first place. This multi-period mechanism works with eitherinflation targets, or the appointment of a conservativecentral banker. Our results suggest that more complicatedincentive schemes, embedded within broader constitutionalarrangements, are required in the presence of privateinformation for them to work effectively.     

The underexamined assumptions of the invisible hand: Monetary incentives as policy instruments

To alleviate overcrowding in pretrial detention facilities, the City of New York established a program offering substantial budgetary increments to those district attorneys' offices in the city that reduced the number of long-term detainee cases. The experience with this program suggests that the inherent assuptions underlying a monetary incentive strategy—the existence of capacity, the avoidability of goal displacement, and the efficacy of financial rewards—need to be carefully examined if implementation is to be successful.     

Participation Income and the Provision of Socially Valuable Activities

In this article, I argue that a participatory income (PI)—the proposal originally presented by Anthony Atkinson in 1996—can potentially perform better than an unconditional basic income (UBI) in terms of addressing unmet social needs. I explain why we should expect that unmet social needs can be better alleviated by the recipients of a PI rather than by the voluntary actions of UBI recipients. In particular, the argument presented here seeks to develop a particularly forgotten point in the PI debate—namely, the importance of using income transfer programmes as a policy tool to motivate people to engage in socially valuable activities.     

Municipal Rebate Programs for Environmental Retrofits: An Evaluation of Additionality and Cost‐Effectiveness

When policies incentivize voluntary activities that also take place in the absence of the incentive, it is critical to identify the additionality of the policy—that is, the degree to which the policy results in actions that would not have occurred otherwise. Rebate programs have become a common conservation policy tool for local municipalities seeking to retrofit residential properties with efficient appliances. This research evaluates whether such rebates can be cost‐effective means for water utilities to promote water conservation. A unique database is developed that combines water‐use data over a three‐year period for all households that participated in a utility's high‐efficiency toilet (HET) rebate program, water‐use data for a matched sample of neighbors who did not receive a rebate, and a survey of rebate participants. Difference‐in‐differences models indicate that installation of an HET reduces household water consumption by approximately 7 percent. While installation of an HET appears to be an effective means for achieving household reductions in water consumption, our results also suggest that the rebate program is a much less effective means for achieving household reductions in water consumption. Specifically, the rebate program is found to provide limited additional water savings beyond what would have occurred naturally and is responsible for only 37 percent of the total water reduction attributable to the installation of HETs over the study period. © 2013 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Interlocal Collaboration and Local Fiscal Structure: Do State Incentives Matter?

Interlocal collaboration is considered an important tool for cost-saving. States, therefore, have incentivized interlocal collaboration in different ways. To understand the budgetary consequences of interlocal collaboration and state incentives, we examine counties in Nebraska where the State uses two incentive mechanisms—resource restrictions and additional access to restricted revenues granted to counties with collaboration. This study finds that county expenditures are lower when they spend more through collaboration. While this lower spending is related to lower revenues in counties less constrained by state restrictions, the results for counties more constrained are unclear. State incentive structures may matter for such variations.     

“三重三轻”:科研激励机制刍议

哲学社会科学激励是科研管理活动中一项重要的内容,有效的、科学的科研激励机制可以极大地激发科研人员的积极性和创造性,从而达到多出成果特别是精品成果、多出人才特别是拔尖人才的目的。本文侧重梳理了社科院系统的科研激励机制现状,并分析其中存在的问题,即重低层次激励、轻国家级政府激励,重成果、轻学者,重精神激励、轻物质激励,最后提出改进和完善科研激励机制的对策和建议。     

The relationship between government and opposition in the bundestag and house of commons in the run‐up to the Maastricht Treaty

This article analyses modes of interaction between government and opposition in the German Bundestag and the British House of Commons in the run‐up to the Maastricht Treaty, and the implications of co‐operation or a lack thereof for the parties involved. The article is based on the premise that the government—opposition relationship is not derived solely from power relationships and institutional factors, but is also a matter of democratic legitimacy. Three indicators are used to ascertain the level of government—opposition co‐operation: the creation of parliamentary committees, information exchange and incentive management. Based on an institutional analysis and interviews with legislators, the finding is that although parties in Germany and the UK have created parliamentary committees dealing with European affairs, only in the former did the government utilise the new tool for co‐operation with the opposition, in terms of information exchange and incentive management. Consequently, informal co‐operation in Germany brought about an outcome compatible with the interests of the parties involved. By contrast, the lack of co‐operation with opposition parties in Britain led to an extreme parliamentary crisis.     

Do State‐Funded Property Tax Exemptions Increase Local Government Inefficiency? An Analysis of New York State's STAR Program

This study tests the effects of a growing form of indirect state aid—state‐supported property tax exemptions—on local government efficiency. We hypothesize that larger exemptions, by lowering the effective tax price paid by local homeowners and thus their incentive to monitor efficiency, will reduce local government efficiency. We test this hypothesis by examining the introduction of New York State's large state‐subsidized property tax exemption program, which began in 1999. We find evidence that, all else constant, the exemptions have reduced efficiency in districts with larger exemptions, but the effects appear to diminish as taxpayers become accustomed to the exemptions.     

Much Ado about nothing? A multilevel analysis of the relationship between voluntary associations' characteristics and their members' generalized trust

The last 20 years of research on the micro-level relationship between involvement in voluntary associations and generalized trust has been characterized by a growing theory–data gap. This gap is especially problematic in terms of including diversity across voluntary associations in empirical analyses. This article aims to bridge this gap by using a hierarchically clustered data set (active members nested in voluntary associations) and multilevel analyses to test several hypotheses drawn from prior studies about the relationship between voluntary associations' characteristics and members' level of generalized trust. Overall, the results indicate that in explaining the variability in individual generalized trust levels, differences among the associations in which individuals are involved could contribute marginally at best. Almost all variance (97.6%) in individual level of generalized trust lies between the individuals and not between the associations. Furthermore, the analyses show no correlations for most tested associational characteristics. As for membership diversity, the most pronounced result runs opposite to expectation—thus providing some support for a membership similarity hypothesis rather than for a diversity hypothesis. The article raises the question whether the search for associational differences that might explain the lack of a general relationship between membership in voluntary associations and individual level of generalized trust is in fact a dead end.     

Incentives,Selection, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from IMPACT

Teachers in the United States are compensated largely on the basis of fixed schedules that reward experience and credentials. However, there is a growing interest in whether performance‐based incentives based on rigorous teacher evaluations can improve teacher retention and performance. The evidence available to date has been mixed at best. This study presents novel evidence on this topic based on IMPACT, the controversial teacher‐evaluation system introduced in the District of Columbia Public Schools by then‐Chancellor Michelle Rhee. IMPACT implemented uniquely high‐powered incentives linked to multiple measures of teacher performance (i.e., several structured observational measures as well as test performance). We present regression‐discontinuity (RD) estimates that compare the retention and performance outcomes among low‐performing teachers whose ratings placed them near the threshold that implied a strong dismissal threat. We also compare outcomes among high‐performing teachers whose rating placed them near a threshold that implied an unusually large financial incentive. Our RD results indicate that dismissal threats increased the voluntary attrition of low‐performing teachers by 11 percentage points (i.e., more than 50 percent) and improved the performance of teachers who remained by 0.27 of a teacher‐level standard deviation. We also find evidence that financial incentives further improved the performance of high‐performing teachers (effect size = 0.24).