A note on social drinking: In Vino Veritas

It has been a persistent phenomenon in many societies that a large proportion of alcohol consumption takes place in company of other people. While the phenomenon of social or public drinking is well discussed in disciplines such as social psychology and anthropology, economists have paid little attention to the social environment of alcohol consumption. This paper tries to close this gap and explains social drinking as a trust facilitating device. Since alcohol consumption tends to make some people (unwillingly) tell the truth, social drinking can eventually serve as a signaling device in social contact games.     

Developing a Vibrant Livestock Industry in East Africa Through Market-Driven Research

Global demand for livestock products is increasing faster than supply putting humanity at risk of hunger and starvation. Research can reverse this trend but inadequate stakeholder involvement in its design and implementation leads to minimal impact. This study sought to explain how East Africa can develop a vibrant livestock industry through market-driven research （MDR）, which has an inherent capacity for stakeholder involvement implying a better public-private partnership. A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from 25 randomly selected academics. Information was obtained from literature review and face-to-face interviews on the meaning of MDR, its importance, challenges, opportunities, focus areas and implications. The study shows strong support for MDR. Technologies and innovations developed through it are more likely to be adopted. The study concludes that MDR is suitable for solving societal problems and transforming East Africa from a net importer to a net exporter of livestock products. MDR should focus on improving productivity of the livestock industry through improved livestock breeding, animal husbandry, and marketing.     

Demultilateralisation: A cognitive psychological perspective

This contribution seeks to illuminate the looming phenomenon of demultilateralisation and the return of and to the nation state, i.e. closure. Whereas many reasons for opening and closure have been discussed by Habermas in his eminent essay, we aim at providing an additional dimension, taking a psychological point of view and analysing this proclivity from a behaviourally informed perspective. Following a short recapitulation of the evolution towards postnationalism, we briefly sketch the current phenomenon of demultilateralisation and renationalisation. We then contribute to the current debate by providing cognitive psychological insights drawing on well‐researched biases that offer the greatest potential to explain the current outbreak of closing tendencies, namely prospect theory, including the endowment effect, framing, the availability bias and so‐called hawkish biases. This may add an explanatory dimension to why nationalistic politics have become again the beguiling sanctuary of the people. We attempt to define scope conditions of closure.     

Meeting of Commonwealth Law Ministers and Senior Officials

The paper broadly captures the legal framework for the prosecution of piracy cases in Kenya, given the experience that Kenya has gained from piracy prosecutions since 2006. It also underscores the need for regional, coastal and flag states to co-operate in the repression of piracy off the coast of Somalia in line with the UN Security Council resolutions on the subject. The challenges that Kenya has encountered in piracy prosecutions are also highlighted, and suggestions on how best states can co-operate in this regard are made. International co-operation is identified as a key component to the success in combatting piracy.     

Government Incentives when Pollution Permits are Durable Goods

This paper analyzes the incentive effects of pollution taxesversus pollution permits for a budget oriented Government.Pollution permits are analyzed as durable goods, and apollution tax is seen as being equivalent to leasing outpollution permits. First, a general model is developed, andthen four stylized types of Government are discussed (abenevolent dictator, a pure Leviathan, a green and a business-friendly Government). We show that all types of Governmentprefer a pollution tax system, but this regime is notnecessarily the best in social welfare terms. The intuition isthat a tax or leasing system makes it easier for theGovernment to credibly commit to the budget maximizing levelof pollution permits which is good for Government revenues,but not necessarily for social welfare.     

Not guilty? Another look at the nature and nurture of economics students

In this paper, we re-examine students’ attitudes towards various allocation mechanisms for a scarce resource. For this purpose, we have run a survey among officers of the German military who are enrolled in different courses of study (such as economics) at the University of the German Federal Armed Forces. We find that significantly more students who are enrolled in economics courses judge price increases as fair than students enrolled in other courses. Moreover, this tendency strengthens the more training in economics the students receive. In addition, fewer students with advanced economic education judge allocation through the local community as fair when compared to first-year students in economics courses or other students. These results stand in contrast to results obtained by Frey et al. (J Econ Educ, 24:271–281, 1993) on the same survey. In summary, we find evidence for both nature and nurture effects.