Uncovering Economic Behavior in Heterogeneous Institutional Environments

Uncovering Economic Behavior in Heterogeneous Institutional Environments PDF Author: Jose Gabriel Castillo Garcia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The three essays in this thesis foster the identification of unexpected influences of different institutional arrangements on economic outcomes. The first two essays, experimental in nature, analyze the impact of two different contexts within Public Goods Games (PGG) environments. The first essay documents exact replications of four classic experiments in PGG and cast unexpected results in contribution behavior. First, it shows how the attenuation effect in replication studies, well documented in other disciplines, is also pervasive in experimental economics. Not all previous findings replicate, and effects found in successful replications are much smaller. Second, it shows that experimental context matters; experimental subjects in Texas tend to contribute more and free ride less, across different experiments. The second essay analyzes whether democratic institutions have any impact on agency problems where group members face a centralized arrangement of sanctioning power. It offers novel evidence, although a weak effect, of the intrinsic incentives for pro-social behavior attached to legitimacy in democratic institutions to promote collective action and higher economic efficiency. Finally, the last essay offers an empirical alternative to unravel heterogeneous unobserved traits on credit market customers. Through the use of mixture density estimation methods and rich administrative data, it identifies different quality-types of clients for credit demand and default decisions. Credit customers differ in their individual preferences, as well as levels of foresight, strategic behavior; all unobserved by the principal (lender). Accounting for these unobserved traits improves the forecast of potential clients' behavior and offers alternatives for different contracts and risk-pricing strategies to reduce credit rationing. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/155533

Uncovering Economic Behavior in Heterogeneous Institutional Environments

Uncovering Economic Behavior in Heterogeneous Institutional Environments PDF Author: Jose Gabriel Castillo Garcia
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
The three essays in this thesis foster the identification of unexpected influences of different institutional arrangements on economic outcomes. The first two essays, experimental in nature, analyze the impact of two different contexts within Public Goods Games (PGG) environments. The first essay documents exact replications of four classic experiments in PGG and cast unexpected results in contribution behavior. First, it shows how the attenuation effect in replication studies, well documented in other disciplines, is also pervasive in experimental economics. Not all previous findings replicate, and effects found in successful replications are much smaller. Second, it shows that experimental context matters; experimental subjects in Texas tend to contribute more and free ride less, across different experiments. The second essay analyzes whether democratic institutions have any impact on agency problems where group members face a centralized arrangement of sanctioning power. It offers novel evidence, although a weak effect, of the intrinsic incentives for pro-social behavior attached to legitimacy in democratic institutions to promote collective action and higher economic efficiency. Finally, the last essay offers an empirical alternative to unravel heterogeneous unobserved traits on credit market customers. Through the use of mixture density estimation methods and rich administrative data, it identifies different quality-types of clients for credit demand and default decisions. Credit customers differ in their individual preferences, as well as levels of foresight, strategic behavior; all unobserved by the principal (lender). Accounting for these unobserved traits improves the forecast of potential clients' behavior and offers alternatives for different contracts and risk-pricing strategies to reduce credit rationing. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/155533

The Shield of Nationality

The Shield of Nationality PDF Author: Rachel L. Wellhausen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316124037
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
There is extraordinary variation in how governments treat multinational corporations in emerging economies; in fact, governments around the world have nationalized or eaten away at the value of foreign-owned property in violation of international treaties. This even occurs in poor countries, where governments are expected to, at a minimum, respect the contracts they make with foreign firms lest foreign capital flee. In The Shield of Nationality, Rachel Wellhausen introduces foreign-firm nationality as a key determinant of firms' responses to government breaches of contract. Firms of the same nationality are likely to see a compatriot's broken contract as a forewarning of their own problems, leading them to take flight or fight. In contrast, firms of other nationalities are likely to meet the broken contract with apparent indifference. Evidence includes quantitative analysis and case studies that draw on field research in Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania.

Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation

Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation PDF Author: Nathan M. Jensen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837375
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
What makes a country attractive to foreign investors? To what extent do conditions of governance and politics matter? This book provides the most systematic exploration to date of these crucial questions at the nexus of politics and economics. Using quantitative data and interviews with investment promotion agencies, investment location consultants, political risk insurers, and decision makers at multinational corporations, Nathan Jensen arrives at a surprising conclusion: Countries may be competing for international capital, but government fiscal policy--both taxation and spending--has little impact on multinationals' investment decisions. Although government policy has a limited ability to determine patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, political institutions are central to explaining why some countries are more successful in attracting international capital. First, democratic institutions lower political risks for multinational corporations. Indeed, they lead to massive amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, politically federal institutions, in contrast to fiscally federal institutions, lower political risks for multinationals and allow host countries to attract higher levels of FDI inflows. Third, the International Monetary Fund, often cited as a catalyst for promoting foreign investment, actually deters multinationals from investment in countries under IMF programs. Even after controlling for the factors that lead countries to seek IMF support, IMF agreements are associated with much lower levels of FDI inflows.

Decision Making for the Environment

Decision Making for the Environment PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309095409
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
With the growing number, complexity, and importance of environmental problems come demands to include a full range of intellectual disciplines and scholarly traditions to help define and eventually manage such problems more effectively. Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities is the result of a 2-year effort by 12 social and behavioral scientists, scholars, and practitioners. The report sets research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences as they relate to several different kinds of environmental problems.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

The World Bank Research Observer

The World Bank Research Observer PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Computer network resources
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description


Social Capital

Social Capital PDF Author: Partha Dasgupta
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 9780821350041
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
This book contains a number of papers presented at a workshop organised by the World Bank in 1997 on the theme of 'Social Capital: Integrating the Economist's and the Sociologist's Perspectives'. The concept of 'social capital' is considered through a number of theoretical and empirical studies which discuss its analytical foundations, as well as institutional and statistical analyses of the concept. It includes the classic 1987 article by the late James Coleman, 'Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital', which formed the basis for the development of social capital as an organising concept in the social sciences.

The Drama of the Commons

The Drama of the Commons PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309169984
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
The "tragedy of the commons" is a central concept in human ecology and the study of the environment. It has had tremendous value for stimulating research, but it only describes the reality of human-environment interactions in special situations. Research over the past thirty years has helped clarify how human motivations, rules governing access to resources, the structure of social organizations, and the resource systems themselves interact to determine whether or not the many dramas of the commons end happily. In this book, leaders in the field review the evidence from several disciplines and many lines of research and present a state-of-the-art assessment. They summarize lessons learned and identify the major challenges facing any system of governance for resource management. They also highlight the major challenges for the next decade: making knowledge development more systematic; understanding institutions dynamically; considering a broader range of resources (such as global and technological commons); and taking into account the effects of social and historical context. This book will be a valuable and accessible introduction to the field for students and a resource for advanced researchers.

ESG and Responsible Institutional Investing Around the World: A Critical Review

ESG and Responsible Institutional Investing Around the World: A Critical Review PDF Author: Pedro Matos
Publisher: CFA Institute Research Foundation
ISBN: 1944960988
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
This survey examines the vibrant academic literature on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. While there is no consensus on the exact list of ESG issues, responsible investors increasingly assess stocks in their portfolios based on nonfinancial data on environmental impact (e.g., carbon emissions), social impact (e.g., employee satisfaction), and governance attributes (e.g., board structure). The objective is to reduce exposure to investments that pose greater ESG risks or to influence companies to become more sustainable. One active area of research at present involves assessing portfolio risk exposure to climate change. This literature review focuses on institutional investors, which have grown in importance such that they have now become the largest holders of shares in public companies globally. Historically, institutional investors tended to concentrate their ESG efforts mostly on corporate governance (the “G” in ESG). These efforts included seeking to eliminate provisions that restrict shareholder rights and enhance managerial power, such as staggered boards, supermajority rules, golden parachutes, and poison pills. Highlights from this section: · There is no consensus on the exact list of ESG issues and their materiality. · The ESG issue that gets the most attention from institutional investors is climate change, in particular their portfolio companies’ exposure to carbon risk and “stranded assets.” · Investors should be positioning themselves for increased regulation, with the regulatory agenda being more ambitious in the European Union than in the United States. Readers might come away from this survey skeptical about the potential for ESG investing to affect positive change. I prefer to characterize the current state of the literature as having a “healthy dose of skepticism,” with much more remaining to be explored. Here, I hope the reader comes away with a call to action. For the industry practitioner, I believe that the investment industry should strive to achieve positive societal goals. CFA Institute provides an exemplary case in its Future of Finance series (www.cfainstitute.org/research/future-finance). For the academic community, I suggest we ramp up research aimed at tackling some of the open questions around the pressing societal goals of ESG investing. I am optimistic that practitioners and academics will identify meaningful ways to better harness the power of global financial markets for addressing the pressing ESG issues facing our society.

Handbook of Contemporary Behavioral Economics

Handbook of Contemporary Behavioral Economics PDF Author: Morris Altman
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
ISBN: 9780765618900
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 794

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Book Description