evidence from an experiment on charity to welfare recipients reciprocity altruism and the empathic responsiveness hypothesis this article investigates the determinants of generosity in an experiment on charity to real life welfare recipients it tests the effects of various measures of unconditional altruism and conditional or reciprocal altruism the results show strong support for conditional or reciprocal altruism however people who are self reported unconditional altruists make offers that are highly elastic with respect to the apparent worthiness of the recipient one interpretation of this is that self reported unconditional altruists have combined desires to help others and to reciprocate unconditional altruism and reciprocal altruism may not be independent motives i refer to this combination as empathic responsiveness

theories of the price and quantity of physician services a synthesis and critique abstract in the traditional neoclassical model of supply and demand prices determine the allocation of economic resources the difficulty in applying this model to physician services is the rationing of resources directly by physicians themselves eliminating the allocative function of prices welfare consequences are appropriately judged in terms of efficiency and equity not departures from the structural relationships implied by supply and demand as interpreted here both competitive theories and target income theories of this market imply that physicians consider both their own welfare and the welfare of their patients in their decision making all consumer benefits and all producer costs are internalized by physicians they consequently have an incentive to obtain the maximum possible social benefit from the resources at their disposal to the extent that they are implicitly allowed to share in the resulting social gains the distributions of gains between patients and physicians is determined by professional ethics within bounds imposed by competitive forces

the motivation and bias of bureaucrats many individuals are motivated to exert effort because they care about their jobs rather than because there are monetary consequences to their actions the intrinsic motivation of bureaucrats is the focus of this paper and three primary results are shown first bureaucrats should be biased second sometimes this bias takes the form of advocating for their clients more than would their principal while in other cases they are more hostile to their interests for a range of bureaucracies those who are biased against clients lead to more efficient outcomes third self selection need not produce the desired bias instead selection to bureaucracies is likely to be bifurcated in the sense that it becomes composed of those who are most preferred by the principal and those who are least preferred

is corporate social responsibility associated with lower wages firms with a reputation as socially responsible may have an important cost advantage if workers prefer their employer to be socially responsible equilibrium wages may be lower in such firms we explore this hypothesis combining norwegian register data with data on firm reputation collected by an employer branding firm adjusting for a large set of background variables we find that the firm s social responsibility reputation is significantly associated with lower wages

experimental evidence on unemployment insurance work search policies this paper describes findings from an experimental evaluation of alternative work search policies in the unemployment insurance ui program we find that the no work search treatment significantly increased ui receipt relative to the standard work search approach by 3 3 weeks and 265 per claimant and that the treatment with the most intensive requirements reduced ui payments by one half of a week or 70 per claimant the results suggest that work search requirements reduce ui spells by increasing the nonmonetary costs of remaining on ui rather than enhancing job search abilities we also find little treatment effects for wages earnings or total income suggesting that an increase in the nonmonetary costs of continued ui receipt are associated with more intensive job search rather than a reduction in the reservation wage

motivating devoted workers abstract when increased effort by a worker induces an employer to reduce its use of other inputs inefficiency may result in particular suppose that output increases with the worker s effort that a worker exerts extra effort because he values the output produced beyond the wage he earns that output increases with the capital the employer provides and that these levels are not verifiable under plausible conditions output is lower if the employer can commit to a level of capital than if it cannot if the employer cannot commit then output may decline as the worker values the output more when the employer pays the worker for increased output output may be lower when the worker values it than when he does not lastly efficiency may increase when a firm is paid more for a unit of output than its marginal social value and when the employer can commit to using a given level of other inputs

the hidden middle the quiet revolution in the midstream of agrifood value chains in developing countries the food security debate has focused largely on the farm sector and on trade relatively neglected or hidden from mainstream debate are the middle segments processing logistics wholesale of agrifood value chains in developing countries and yet this midstream forms 30 40 per cent of the value added and costs in food value chains the productivity of the midstream is as important as farm yields for food security in poor countries the article shows that over the past several decades the middle segments have transformed quickly and surprisingly with a huge volume expansion a proliferation of small and medium enterprises smes but also concentrating and multinationalizing in some places and products with technology change characterized by capital led intensification and with the incipient emergence of branding and labelling and packaging of new organizational arrangements in procurement and marketing interfaces with farmers and retailers and of private standards and contracts economic policies of market and foreign direct investment fdi liberalization commercial and business climate regulations hard and soft infrastructure investment and food safety laws have paved the path to the expansion and shaped the transformation of the important midstream segment of food value chains

punitive sanctions and the transition rate from welfare to work in the netherlands the average exit rate out of welfare is dramatically low most welfare recipients have to comply with guidelines on job search effort that are imposed by the welfare agency if they do not then a sanction in the form of a temporary benefit reduction can be imposed this article investigates the effect of such sanctions on the transition rate from welfare to work using a unique set of rich register data on welfare recipients we find that the imposition of sanctions substantially increases the individual transition rate from welfare to work

the private sector in agricultural research systems will it fill the gap abstract this article examines whether the private sector can fill the gap of declining public research in developing countries economic theory suggests private for profit research will focus on areas where returns to research are appropriable and reasonable profits are generated actual private for profit research activities concentrate on countries and industries with large markets appropriable returns strong science infrastructure and favorable government policies governments and donors can promote private research by easing constraints to private entry and operations but if governments stop funding research on public goods and technologies with limited market potential the private sector is unlikely to fill the gap completely

selfish bakers caring nurses a model of work motivation abstract work contributes to people s self image in important ways we propose a model in which effort is unobservable and where individuals have a preference for being important to others this gives the following predictions 1 if a worker s effort is paid by his marginal productivity bakers effort is just like in the standard model 2 if a worker s wage is unaffected by his effort nurses more effort is provided than in the standard model 3 to prevent that shirkers become nurses nurses wages must be kept strictly lower than bakers income at this wage level there will be too few nurses 4 overinvestment in nursing equipment can be justified as a means to attract motivated nurses 5 even with full income compensation both nurses and bakers may experience a net utility loss when losing their job 6 similarly both nurses and bakers may prefer work to welfare even with full income compensation

output volatility and economic growth abstract this paper proposes a new instrument to identify the causal effect of output volatility on economic growth which is based on exogenous volatility spillovers from abroad cross section evidence from 128 countries points to a negative effect of volatility on growth

how important is pro social behaviour in the delivery of public services a number of papers have suggested that pro social behaviour in the workplace may be sensitive to the institutional environment but there is little empirical research that attempts to test this directly using data on worker behaviour this is the aim of this paper we show that individuals in the non profit sector are significantly more likely to do unpaid overtime than those in the for profit sector however we find no evidence of adjustment along either the extensive or intensive margins when individuals change sectors the results of our analysis therefore point to selection and we find supporting evidence that individuals do self select on the basis of their propensity to donate labour

stealth seeds bioproperty biosafety biopolitics transgenic seeds in both india bt cotton and brazil glyphosate resistant soybeans spread widely and rapidly through farming communities outside the reach of biosafety or bioproperty institutions stealth transgenics are saved cross bred repackaged sold exchanged and planted in an anarchic agrarian capitalism that defies surveillance and control of firms and states the outcome is more pro poor than alternative modes of diffusion but undermines a growing consensus in the international development community on appropriate bio safety and intellectual property institutions for biotechnology second stealth procurement of biotechnology divides nominally pro poor political coalitions driven by a great ideational divide on uncertainties and risks of transgenics the ability of seeds to move underground through stealth strategies of farmers undermines widely assumed bio safety regime capability likewise property in biotechnology appears less monopolistic and powerful more relational and contingent stealth practices of farmers in pursuit of transgenics contrary to wishes of firms states and many ngos suggest a different model of the farmer than that often encountered in both developmentalist and anti gmo discourse more active creative and autonomous less hapless and supine resultant incapacity of social institutions to secure interests of firms and states in biotechnology renders more likely eventual development of controls from genetic engineering the terminator technology of political dramaturgy

quality competition with profit constraints abstract firms in markets such as health care and education are often profit constrained due to regulation or their non profit status and they are often viewed as being altruistic towards consumers we use a spatial competition framework to study incentives for cost containment and quality provision by altruistic firms facing profit constraints if prices are regulated profit constraints lead to lower cost containment efforts but higher quality if and only if firms are sufficiently altruistic under price competition profit constraints reduce quality and cost containment efforts but lead to lower prices if and only if firms are sufficiently altruistic profit constrained firms cost containment efforts are below the first best while their quality might be too high or too low if prices are regulated profit constraints can improve welfare and be a complement or substitute to a higher regulated price depending on the degree of altruism

the impact of bt cotton on poor households in rural india the impact of genetically modified gm crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy while previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of bacillus thuringiensis bt cotton and other gm crops little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes we use a microeconomic modelling approach and comprehensive survey data from india to analyse welfare and distribution effects in a typical village economy bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour especially for hired female workers likewise aggregate household incomes rise including for poor and vulnerable farmers hence bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development

purchasing health care services from providers with unknown altruism cost sharing rules for paying physicians have been advanced as a way of generating incentives for the provision of quality care while recognizing their potential negative effects on production efficiency however the optimal sharing rate typically depends on the degree to which the physician acts in the interest of the patient what we identify as the physician s altruism since the degree of altruism is likely to vary across physicians and to be private information the standard rules for setting the cost sharing rate are unlikely to be optimal this paper derives conditions for the optimal non linear cost sharing mechanism in the presence of asymmetric information about altruism and shows how it can sometimes be implemented through a menu of linear cost sharing schemes the model can be used to rationalize the design of the fund holder system for general practictioners that operated in the 1990s in the united kingdom

cyclical expenditure policy output volatility and economic growth this article provides an empirical assessment of the relation between the cyclicality of fiscal expenditure policy output volatility and economic growth using a cross section of 88 countries over the period 1960 to 2004 identification of the effects of endogenous cyclical expenditure policy is achieved by exploiting the exogeneity of countries political and institutional characteristics which we find to be relevant determinants of the cyclicality of expenditures there are three main results first both pro and countercyclical expenditure policy amplify output volatility much in a way like pure fiscal shocks second output volatility due to variations in cyclical and discretionary fiscal policy is negatively associated with economic growth third there is no direct effect of cyclicality on economic growth other than through output volatility

the case for restricting fiscal policy discretion this paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output volatility and economic growth using data for 91 countries we isolate three empirical regularities 1 governments that use fiscal policy aggressively induce significant macroeconomic instability 2 the volatility of output caused by discretionary fiscal policy lowers economic growth by more than 0 8 percentage points for every percentage point increase in volatility 3 prudent use of fiscal policy is explained to a large extent by the presence of political constraints and other political and institutional variables the evidence in the paper supports arguments for constraining discretion by imposing institutional restrictions on governments as a way to reduce output volatility and increase the rate of economic growth

identity and the economics of organizations on plebes first day at west point called r day they strip down to their underwear their hair is cut off they are put in uniform they then must address an older cadet with the proper salute and with the statement sir new cadet doe reports to the cadet in the red sash for the first time as ordered plebes must stand and salute and repeat and stand and salute and repeat until they get it exactly right all the while being reprimanded for every tiny mistake in the summary of david lipsky 2003 pp 145 154 who spent four years tracking a company of cadets at west point on r day you surrender your old self in stages but r day is just the beginning of the training and personal re engineering that is to come so that west point graduates emerge four years later as loyal officers in the u s army lipsky shows that despite some failure this tough program is remarkably successful in creating officers with the will to lead in battle economists current picture of organizations and work incentives has no place for the west point program and the motivations it seeks to inculcate in recruits in a standard economic model an individual s preferences are fixed and utility depends only on pecuniary variables the army s aim at west point is to change cadets preferences they wish to inculcate non economic motives in the cadets so that they have the same goals as the u s army alternatively stated the goal of west point is to change the identity of the cadets so they will think of themselves above all else as officers in the u s army they will feel bad about themselves they will lose utility if they fall short of the ideals of such an officer this change in identity

public service motivation as an argument for government provision a public service motivation psm inclines employees to provide effort out of concern for the impact of that effort on a valued social service though deemed to be important in the literature on public administration this motivation has not been formally considered by economists when a psm exists this paper establishes conditions under which government bureaucracy can better obtain psm motivated effort from employees than a standard profit maximizing firm the model also provides an efficiency rationale for low powered incentives in both bureaucracies and other organizations producing social services 2000 elsevier science s a all rights reserved

organizational form and output quality this paper re examines the relationship between a firm s organizational form not for profit versus for profit and its output quality the arrow hansmann theory of hidden action on the part of providers predicts higher quality for not for profit suppliers this prediction has a puzzling lack of support in the empirical literature we propose a theory that resolves the empirical puzzle and generates additional testable implications the theory starts with the traditional assumptions of hidden action and supplier altruism it then incorporates two additional features of real world markets hidden information on supplier ability to provide high quality and a variation across buyers in the degree of informational asymmetry the central prediction of the theory is that quality has a higher variance across for profits than across not for profits preliminary evidence from the us market for hospital care is consistent with this prediction

long dark shadows or innovative spirits the effects of smoothing business cycles on economic growth a survey of the literature abstract it is argued that fiscal policy can play a part in preventing a possible downward spiral or be instrumental in achieving a higher long term path of growth never before has this argument been advanced as frequently as in the current economic crisis however the economic literature an overview of which is given here does not provide an unambiguous answer either theoretically or empirically to the question of the relationship between the smoothing of cyclical fluctuations and long term growth in this context two main contrasting explanatory paradigms can be identified schumpeter s concept of creative destruction and the learning by doing hypothesis even if it were possible to identify the relationship more clearly on this basis it is important not to lose sight of the problems associated with the real time assessment of the current economic situation time lags and political economic incentives even in difficult times

contracting for health services when patient demand does not reflect quality this paper analyses contracts to keep down costs while maintaining quality of health services when patient demand does not reflect quality there is then a natural role for forms of contract that have emerged during the reforms of the nhs in britain that differ from pure fixed price or cost reimbursement contracts the optimal form depends on whether the provider is entirely self interested or benevolent in having genuine concern for patient welfare with fully benevolent providers there are roles for block and cost and volume contracts with partially benevolent providers some degree of cost sharing is typically optimal

occupational social value and returns to long hours this paper examines the phenomenon of uncompensated long hours in jobs with pro social characteristics and presents evidence that long hour wage premiums and occupational social value are substitutes in compensating salaried workers who supply hours exceeding the standard working week i show that the social value of an occupation in particular the degree to which jobs involve helping or providing service to others is inversely related to long hour pay allowing for heterogeneity in the degree to which workers value their job s helping orientation lets me explore how gender differences in employees attitudes toward pro social behaviour can explain some of the observed occupational sorting trends and gender differences in long hour compensation women tend to be more strongly drawn to helping occupations and at the same time receive lower long hour premiums in these jobs relative to men i offer a theoretical framework to rationalize the empirical trends

the economics of vocation or why is a badly paid nurse a good nurse abstract given the longstanding shortage of nurses in many jurisdictions why could not nursing wages be raised to attract more people into the profession we tell a story in which the status of nursing as a vocation implies that increasing wages reduces the average quality of applicants attracted the underlying mechanism accords with the notion that increasing wages might attract the wrong sort of people into the profession and highlights an in efficiency wage mechanism particular to vocations which makes wages sticky up wards the analysis has implications for job design in vocation based sectors such as nursing and teaching

animal welfare and social decisions is it time to take bentham seriously abstract this paper analyzes and questions the standard welfare economics assumption of anthropocentric welfarism i e that only human well being counts intrinsically alternatives where also animal welfare matters intrinsically are analyzed both theoretically and empirically the general public s ethical preferences are measured through a survey of a representative sample in sweden and the responses from a clear majority suggest that animal welfare should indeed carry intrinsic weight in public decision making current legislation in many countries is consistent with this a brief review of moral philosophy on animal welfare indicates that a large majority of philosophers believe that animal welfare should count intrinsically it is moreover demonstrated that it is theoretically and practically possible to generalize welfare economics in order to give intrinsic value also to animal welfare the paper concludes that there are strong reasons to sometimes generalize welfare economics in order to take animal welfare into account directly i e in addition to effects through individual utilities the practical implications of doing so are likely to be more important over time as the scientific methods of measuring animal welfare are gradually improving

impact of reemployment bonuses on insured unemployment in the new jersey and illinois separate social experiments conducted in new jersey and illinois tested the effect of offering unemployment insurance ui claimants a cash bonus for rapid reemployment the illinois bonus was constant over time while the new jersey bonus declined over time so that the bonus received was greater the earlier that reemployment occurred this paper compares the effects of the bonus offers on the rate at which claimants exited ui the new jersey and illinois bonus offers generated similar increases in the ui exit rate during the period in which claimants could qualify for the bonus however the declining new jersey bonus had little impact on long term claimants who exhausted their ui benefits in contrast the constant illinois bonus had a substantial impact on long term claimants thereby reducing the rate at which claimants exhausted their ui benefits this finding at least partly explains why the illinois bonus had a larger impact on ui receipt than the new jersey bonus

is the threat of reemployment services more effective than the services themselves evidence from random assignment in the ui system we examine the effect of the worker profiling and reemployment services system this program profiles unemployment insurance ui claimants to determine their probability of benefit exhaustion and then provides mandatory employment and training services to claimants with high predicted probabilities using a unique experimental design we estimate that the program reduces mean weeks of ui benefit receipt by about 2 2 weeks reduces mean ui benefits received by about 143 ana increases subsequent earnings by over 1 050 most of the effect results from a sharp increase in early ui exits in the treatment group relative to the control group jel j650

moral hazard and sickness insurance abstract we study if the replacement level in the swedish national sickness insurance which replaces foregone earnings due to temporary illnesses affects work absence behavior we use micro data and estimate the effects of a major reform whereby the replacement level during the first 90 days in each absence spell was reduced on work attendance to separate out the effect of the reform from any trend in work absence we distinguish between the implications on the incidence of work absence i e the frequency of spells and the duration of the spells we also use a regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effects on the prevalence of work absence finally we estimate elasticities with respect to the replacement level in the sickness insurance

the cleansing effect of recessions the authors investigate industry response to cyclical variations in demand production units that embody the newest process and product innovations are continuously being created and outdated units are being destroyed although outdated units are the most likely to turn unprofitable and be scrapped in a recession they can be insulated from the fall in demand by a reduction in creation the structure of adjustment costs plays a determinant role in the responsiveness of those two margins the calibrated model matches the relative volatilities of the observed manufacturing job creation and destruction series and their asymmetries over the cycle copyright 1994 by american economic association

a model of physician behaviour with demand inducement we present a model of the physician patient relationship extending on the model by farley farley p j 1986 theories of the price and quantity of physician services journal of health economics 5 315 333 of supplier induced demand sid first we make a case for the way this model specifies professional ethics physician competition and sid itself second we derive predictions from this model and confront them with the neoclassical model finally we stress the importance of considering how sid affects patient welfare in providing an example where physicians ability to induce makes patients better off to evaluate patient welfare we derive approximations of the patients welfare loss due to physician market power in both the neoclassical model and the inducement model

economics and identity this paper considers how identity a person s sense of self affects economic outcomes we incorporate the psychology and sociology of identity into an economic model of behavior in the utility function we propose identity is associated with different social categories and how people in these categories should behave we then construct a simple game theoretic model showing how identity can affect individual interactions the paper adapts these models to gender discrimination in the workplace the economics of poverty and social exclusion and the household division of labor in each case the inclusion of identity substantively changes conclusions of previous economic analysis

institutional causes macroeconomic symptoms volatility crises and growth countries that have pursued distortionary macroeconomic policies including high inflation large budget deficits and misaligned exchange rates appear to have suffered more macroeconomic volatility and also grown more slowly during the postwar period does this reflect the causal effect of these macroeconomic policies on economic outcomes one reason to suspect that the answer may be no is that countries pursuing poor macroeconomic policies also have weak institutions including political institutions that do not constrain politicians and political elites ineffective enforcement of property rights for investors widespread corruption and a high degree of political instability this paper documents that countries that inherited more extractive institutions from their colonial past were more likely to experience high volatility and economic crises during the postwar period more specifically societies where european colonists faced high mortality rates more than 100 years ago are much more volatile and prone to crises based on our previous work we interpret this relationship as due to the causal effect of institutions on economic outcomes europeans did not settle and were more likely to set up extractive institutions in areas where they faced high mortality once we control for the effect of institutions macroeconomic policies appear to have only a minor impact on volatility and crises this suggests that distortionary macroeconomic policies are more likely to be symptoms of underlying institutional problems rather than the main causes of economic

impact of bt cotton in china abstract a sample of 283 cotton farmers in northern china was surveyed in december 1999 farmers that used cotton engineered to produce the bacillus thuringiensis bt toxin substantially reduced the use of pesticide without reducing the output ha or quality of cotton this resulted in substantial economic benefits for small farmers consumers did not benefit directly farmers obtained the major share of benefits and because of weak intellectual property rights very little went back to government research institutes or foreign firms that developed these varieties farmers using bt cotton reported fewer pesticide poisonings than those using conventional cotton

the politics of technological upgrading international transfer to and adaptation of gm cotton in argentina summary we describe patterns of international transfer to and adaptation of genetically modified gm cotton in argentina and ask whether political bargaining between the technology owner a multinational enterprise mne and host country actors may have influenced upgrading we suggest that the mne was able to use its exclusive capacity to upgrade gm cotton technologies as a negotiation tool to persuade host actors to change the rules that affected its multi lines of business in the country this implies wider policy scope to encourage technology upgrading host actors could negotiate over a wider range of aspects of interest to mnes

unemployment duration and the restart effect some experimental evidence in this paper we analyse the effect of ihe restart programme in the united kingdom this programme consisis of an interview of tbe long term unemployed to counsel them on effective job search failure to attend the interview carries the threat of the cessation of unemployment benefits the results using experimental data indicate that the programme has a significant effect of reducing unemployment duration estimation of an independent competing risks model distinguishing between exits from unemployment to a job a training placement or to signing off unemployment benefit shows that the channels through which restart works differs according to exit type

bt cotton in india field trial results and economic projections abstract the performance of bt cotton in india is analyzed on the basis of field trial data from 2001 the amounts of pesticides applied during the trials were reduced to one third of what was used in conventional cotton while under severe pest pressure yield gains were 80 productivity effects are modeled econometrically with a damage control specification the first approval for the commercial cultivation of bt hybrids was given in 2002 by 2005 the technology is expected to cover one quarter of total indian cotton area medium term projections show sizeable welfare gains for the overall economy with farmers being the main beneficiaries

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

unemployment duration and economic incentives a quasi random assignment approach abstract we investigate how economic incentives and spell duration affect hazard rates out of insured unemployment we take into account that insured unemployment not always ends in employment but also in disability training programs or benefit sanctions our empirical basis is norwegian register data containing variation in economic incentives and spell duration similar to that of random assignment experiments we find that the employment and benefit sanction hazards are negatively affected by the unemployment insurance replacement ratio but that the effects vary considerably among individuals there is negative duration dependence in the employment hazard and positive duration dependence in the disability hazard

competition and incentives with motivated agents a unifying theme in the literature on organizations such as public bureaucracies and private nonprofits is the importance of mission as opposed to profit as an organizational goal such mission oriented organizations are frequently staffed by motivated agents who subscribe to the mission this paper studies incentives in such contexts and emphasizes the role of matching the mission preferences of principals and agents in increasing organizational efficiency matching economizes on the need for high powered incentives it can also however entrench bureaucratic conservatism and resistance to innovations the framework developed in this paper is applied to school competition incentives in the public sector and in private nonprofits and the interdependence of incentives and productivity between the private for profit sector and the mission oriented sector through occupational choice jel d23 d73 h41 l31 the late twentieth century witnessed a historic high in the march of market capitalism with unbridled optimism in the role of the profit motive in promoting welfare in the production of private goods moreover this generated a broad consensus on the optimal organization of private good production through privately owned competitive firms when it comes to the provision of collective goods no such consensus has emerged debates about the relative merits of public and private provision still dominate this paper suggests a contracting approach to the provision of collective goods it focuses on two key issues how to structure incentives and the role of competition between providers at its heart is the idea that organizations that provide collective goods cohere around a mission 2 thus production of collective goods can be viewed as mission oriented

self confidence and personal motivation the maintenance and enhancement of self esteem has always been identified as a fundamental human impulse philosophers writers educators and of course psychologists have all emphasized the crucial role played by self image in motivation affect and social interactions the aim of this chapter is to bring these concerns into the realm of economic analysis and show that this has important implications for how agents process information and make decisions conversely the tools of economic modelling can help shed light on a number of apparently irrational behaviours documented by psychologists

supplying crop biotechnology to the poor opportunities and constraints abstract unlike the public sector research that launched the green revolution private firms based in industrialised countries have done the majority of agricultural biotechnology research and almost all commercialisation of genetically modified gm crops this paper examines consequences of the emergence of a few large companies as leaders in the commercialisation of biotechnology by addressing issues of access to technology costs of conducting research and distribution of economic benefits to provide context we first review the status of crop biotechnology research globally who is benefiting from the technology we then analyse the role of intellectual property rights market access and industry concentration public sector research and gm crop biosafety regulations in determining observed r d by firms the paper recommends policy measures that allow transfer of current technology to the poor and generate more biotechnology research focused on problems of the poor

the cold shiver of not giving enough on the social cost of recycling campaigns governments sometimes try to increase individuals contributions to public goods through appeals to consumer responsibility rather than by economic incentives for example in recycling campaigns using standard consumer theory one would hardly expect such campaigns to work at all but if consumers are motivated by norms appeals may work through changing consumers perception of the normrequirement however increasing voluntary contributions through appeals may come at a social cost the reason is that appeals work through imposing a heavier perceived responsibility on consumers this represents a welfare loss which is not necessarily outweighed by warm glow benefits

reported vs actual job search by unemployment insurance claimants this study compares self reported job search contacts of unemployment insurance recipients with independently verified job search contacts for the total sample reported contacts averaged 2 61 per week compared with actual contacts of only 1 78 per week nearly one fifth of the sample made no job contacts for the single weeks analyzed the separate equations estimated for reported and actual job contacts suggest that systematic misreporting may distort the conclusions particularly for the impact of unemployment insurance benefits on search intensity that would result from analyzing reported rather than actual contacts some implications of the findings for reported unemployment rates also are explored

incentives and the sorting of altruistic agents into street level bureaucracies many street level bureaucrats such as caseworkers have the dual task of helping some clients while sanctioning others we develop a model of such a street level bureaucracy and study the implications of its personnel policy on the self selection and allocation decisions of agents who differ in altruism towards clients when bureaucrats are paid flat wages they do not sanction and the most altruistic types sort into bureaucracy pay for performance induces some bureaucrats to sanction but necessitates an increase in expected wage compensation which can result in sorting from both the top and bottom of the altruism distribution we also show how client composition affects sorting and why street level bureaucrats often experience an overload of clients

policy volatility institutions and economic growth abstract in this paper we present evidence that policy volatility exerts a strong and direct negative impact on growth using data for 93 countries we construct measures of policy volatility based on the standard deviation of the residuals from country specific regressions of government consumption on output undisciplined governments that implement frequent and large changes in government spending unrelated to the state of the business cycle generate lower economic growth we employ both instrumental variables and panel estimation to address concerns of omitted variables and endogeneity a 1 standard deviation increase in policy volatility reduces long term economic growth by about 0 74 in the panel regressions and by more than 1 percentage point in the cross section

changing locus of agricultural research will the poor benefit from biotechnology and privatization trends over the past decade the locus of agricultural research and development has shifted dramatically from the public to the private multinational sector three interrelated forces are transforming the system for supplying improved agricultural technologies to the world s farmers the first is the strengthened and evolving environment for protecting intellectual property in plant innovations the second is the rapid pace of discovery and growth in importance of molecular biology and genetic engineering finally agricultural input and output trade is becoming more open in nearly all countries these developments have created a powerful new set of incentives for private research investment altering the structure of the public private agricultural research endeavor particularly with respect to crop improvement

south north trade intellectual property jurisdictions and freedom to operate in agricultural research on staple crops international food policy research institute washington d c center for the application of molecular biology to international agriculture canberra university of california berkeley the authors are listed alphabetically philip pardey is a senior research fellow and patricia zambrano a senior research assistant at the international food policy research institute carol nottenburg is director of intellectual property at the center for the application of molecular biology to international agriculture and brian wright is a professor and eran binenbaum a ph d student in the department of agricultural and resource economics university of california berkeley stephen stohs bonwoo koo and yuan liang provided excellent research assistance and agapi somwaru usda ers collaborated with us in compiling the trade data richard jefferson provided invaluable comments on earlier drafts research for this paper was made possible in part by a grant from the swedish international development agency sida

cross country evidence on the link between volatility and growth this paper presents empirical evidence against the standard dichotomy in macroeconomics that separates growth from the volatility of economic fluctuations in a sample of ninety two countries as well as a sample of oecd countries the authors find that countries with higher volatility have lower growth the addition of standard control variables strengthens the negative relationship the authors also find that government spending induced volatility is negatively associated with growth even after controlling for both time and country fixed effects copyright 1995 by american economic association