Representational Altruism: The Wary Cooperator as Authoritative Decision Maker

What drives policymakers to put the interests of others above their own? If human nature is inherently selfish, it makes sense to institutionalize incentives that counter decision makers' temptations to use their positions to benefit themselves over others. A growing literature rooted in evolutionary theories of human behavior, however, suggests that humans, under certain circumstances, have inherent predispositions towards “representational altruism,” i.e., to make an authoritative decision to benefit another at one's own expense. Drawing on Hibbing and Alford's conception of the wary cooperator, a theoretical case is made for such behavioral expectations, which are confirmed in a series of original laboratory experiments.     

Poverty and profit in Central American forest policies

The failure of forestry to contribute to poverty reduction in Central America is due to public policies which inhibit its profitability. Absence of public regulation of harvesting and competing subsidies to agriculture keep forestry stumpage prices artificially low. This encourages destruction of the forest resource, which damages both the environment and the potential to reduce poverty. A comparison of Costa Rica and Honduras reveals two dissimilar approaches toward forest policy. While Costa Rica attempts to raise producer and grower stumpage prices by tax credits, soft loans and differential species fees, Honduras enforces price ceilings and uses centralized authority to control forest production and export. Both countries exhibit weaknesses in the management control cycle of programming, budgeting, implementing and evaluating their forest policies. Yet the Costa Rican approach has increased stumpage prices already, which bodes well for their forest sector. By contrast, the major beneficiary of Honduran forest policy has been COHDEFOR, the state enterprise responsible for forestry management, controlling production, and running its national system of agroforestry cooperatives. Despite greater public authority and resources than the Costa Rican forest service (DGF), the Honduran forest policy is not likely to increase producer profitability or reduce poverty in the near future.     

Flipping burgers or flipping pages? Student employment and academic attainment in post-Soviet Latvia

Latvian higher education has undergone a dramatic transition since 1991. This study employs a survey of nearly 1000 social science students studying in 13 different institutions in Latvia to consider the impact of the increase in the number of students who are working while studying. Evidence indicates employment has a strong and significant negative impact on school performance, and the negative impact increases as weekly hours worked increase. This manifests itself through reduced class attendance and reduced time spent in independent study. Finally, we find that the probability of student employment is most significantly affected by the availability of financial aid, gender, ethnicity, and age.