The Journal of socio-economics最新文献

The paper proposes micro-foundations for organizational analysis grounded in behavioral economics. As Simon (1985) pointed out it, “nothing is more fundamental in setting our research agenda and informing our research methods than our view of the nature of the human beings whose behavior we are studying.” The paper examines optimal workplace-level organization structure (decision-making delegation, incentives and monitoring) relative to four common types of individuals, just selfish, civil, decent and dedicated employees (characterized in terms of their social preferences, self- versus other-regarding, reciprocity, trusting and trustworthiness). Four principal propositions arise from this analysis. (1) Mismatch between organization structure and employee preferences reduces productivity and profits. (2) The less prosocial employees in an organization, the more complex and sophisticated and therefore expensive the organization structure must be. (3) The less complex and less interdependent are employees’ tasks, the less dependent is organization structure on employee social preferences. (4) Heterogeneity of preferences poses a design a dynamic challenge as practices generally have to be tailored to one type of employee, and will be associated with exit of other types or adverse-selection by types that will seek to exploit it.

This paper reports the findings from a survey experiment conducted online at IBM to assess the impact of employee awards on behavior in the workplace. We document that the introduction of a hypothetical award has statistically significant effects on the stated willingness to contribute to a public good. Our design allows us to estimate the impact of different award characteristics related to, for example, how public or how valuable the award is. The stated willingness to share important information with colleagues increases monotonically with the value of the monetary payment or gift that comes with the award and is lower for gifts than payments of equal value. Moreover, publicity has a substantial positive effect: a ceremony increases stated contributions by as much as increasing the value of the award from $0 to $1000.

Given the increasingly prominent role the Internet plays in people's daily life, understanding its influence on individual well-being is crucial. Internet use yields direct utility and economic returns that may increase life satisfaction. But the Internet might also have detrimental effects (e.g. addiction, social isolation). This paper aims to examine the impact of Internet use on individual well-being. Using Luxemburgish data extracted from the European Value Survey, we find evidence that non users are less satisfied in their life than Internet users. Moreover, the positive influence of Internet use is stronger for individuals who are young or not satisfied with their income. These findings suggest that public policies aiming to reduce the digital divide by reaching out to non-Internet users are socially desirable.

There is a substantial literature examining the impact of relative wealth or income on adult subjective well-being. Yet the relationship between relative wealth and the subjective well-being of children and adolescents remains largely unknown. This study examines the role of relative (peer) wealth in determining youth life satisfaction. Examining this relationship in the young is advantageous as children and adolescents have limited influence on their socio-economic status. Using school fixed effects, peer groups defined at the school-grade level are likely to be partially exogenous as the student's grade is largely determined by year of birth. The results suggest that relative wealth is negatively associated with life satisfaction, though mainly for males.

We introduce a model of labor supply that considers the immaterial sustenance value of work per se. We suggest that people ask for compensation when increasing work hours but also when reducing work hours even when continuing to work part-time. Based on survey results, we show that the reference point (the worker's actual position) is important, and has an effect on the requested compensation when increasing or decreasing the number of hours worked. We find that the requested compensation is neither linear and nor symmetrical, and suggest that welfare policy should take the immaterial sustenance into account.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan are the only cities in the world that have experienced an atomic bomb attack. This paper explores how this devastating experience affected victims’ tendency to trust others. Individual-level data were used to examine the long-term influence of experiencing an atomic bomb on individuals’ trust. After controlling for individual characteristics, I obtained the following key findings. Individuals who experienced the attack were more likely to trust others. Furthermore, estimation based on a subsample revealed that victims of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb were more likely to trust others than those born in other areas of Japan before World War II. This implies that experiencing an historically traumatic event in 1945 strongly influenced individuals’ trust in others even at the beginning of the 21st century. It follows from this that the effect of this devastating experience was enduring and had a long-term influence on individuals’ values.

A preference in parents for a son is thought to affect their fertility. However, even if parents do not have a preference for a son, the people who surround them possibly have a preference for a son. In this case, social pressure can influence parents’ behavior and fertility. This study explored how social pressure related to the sex of children affects fertility. Effects of social pressure were compared between the pre- and post-World War II generations in Japan. The dependent variable was the number of children in the regression equation. A dummy variable for the first child, which was set to 1 when the first child was a boy, and a dummy variable for the preference for a son were included as independent variables. Social pressure was considered to exist when the dummy variable for the first child had a significant negative sign. The key findings are as follows: in the pre-war generation, if the first child was a daughter, the total number of children tended to increase not only when the mother preferred a son, but also when the mother did not have a preference for either gender. This tendency was not observed for the post-war generation.

Can the average intelligence quotient (IQ) of populations be considered the root cause of international development inequalities? Psychologists and some economic studies have proposed the existence of a link between intelligence quotient and economic development. The paper tests this hypothesis, using different measures of economic development for the year 1500. Consistent with Jared Diamond's (1997) hypothesis, the paper shows how the differences in the timing of agriculture transition and the histories of States, not population IQ differences, predict international development differences before the colonial era. The average IQ of populations appears to be endogenous, related to the diverse stages of nations’ modernization, rather than being an exogenous cause of economic development.