Promises, Promises

As host of the Olympic Games, China seeks to increase national economic and socialdevelopment and "display to the world a new image of China", and presents the Games as an opportunity to foster democracy, improve human rights and integrate China with the rest of the world. In its Olympic Action Plan promulgated in 2002, China outlined the phases of construction in the run up to the 2008 Games, and the standards to which it would hold itself in the governance and construction of venues, impact on Beijing's environment, increasing social and economic development and providing China's citizenry with greater access to information and technology.The goals and specific commitments that the government has adopted not only have implications for the smooth and successfuloperation of the Olympic Games, but also have the potential to impact on a number of China's international obligations, including its human rights obligations.Despite human rights-related commitments as diverse as transparency and accountability, access to information and freedom of the press, poverty alleviation, an improved standard of living for all people, and compensation for evictions and health issues, the record to date raises serious compliance issues

Comparison of Compliance and Intervention Outcomes Between Hip- and Wrist-Worn Accelerometers During a Randomised Crossover Trial of an Active Video Game Intervention in Children.

Background: There are several practical issues when considering the use of hip-worn or wrist-worn accelerometers. This study compared compliance and outcomes between hip- and wrist-worn accelerometers worn simultaneously by children during an active video games intervention. Methods: As part of a larger randomized crossover trial, participants (n=73, age 10-12 years) wore 2 Actical accelerometers simultaneously during waking hours for 7 days, on the hip and wrist. Measurements were repeated at 4 timepoints: 1) at baseline, 2) during traditional video games condition 3) during active video games condition 4) during no video games condition. Compliance and intervention effects were compared between hip and wrist. Results: There were no statistically significant differences at any timepoint in percentage compliance between hip (77-87%) and wrist (79-89%). Wrist-measured counts (difference of 64.3 counts per minute, 95% CI 4.4, 124.3) and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (12 min/day, 95% CI 0.3, 23.7) were higher during the no video games condition compared to the traditional video games condition. There were no differences in hip-measured counts per minute or MVPA between conditions or sedentary time for hip or wrist. Conclusions: There were no differences in compliance between hip- and wrist-worn accelerometers during an intervention trial, however, intervention findings differed between hip and wrist

The Roles of Incentives and Voluntary Cooperation for Contractual Compliance

Efficiency under contractual incompleteness often requires voluntary cooperation in situations where self-regarding incentives for contractual compliance are present as well. Here we provide a comprehensive experimental analysis based on the gift-exchange game of how explicit and implicit incentives affect cooperation. We first show that there is substantial cooperation under non-incentive compatible contracts. Incentive-compatible contracts induce best-reply effort and crowd out any voluntary cooperation. Further experiments show that this result is robust to two important variables: experiencing Trust contracts without any incentives and implicit incentives coming from repeated interaction. Implicit incentives have a strong positive effect on effort only under non-incentive compatible contracts.principal-agent games, gift-exchange experiments, incomplete contracts, explicit incentives, implicit incentives, repeated games, separability, experiments

The roles of incentives and voluntary cooperation for contractual compliance

Efficiency under contractual incompleteness often requires voluntary cooperation in situations where self-regarding incentives for contractual compliance are present as well. Here we provide a comprehensive experimental analysis based on the gift-exchange game of how explicit and implicit incentives affect cooperation. We first show that there is substantial cooperation under non-incentive compatible contracts. Incentive-compatible contracts induce best-reply effort and crowd out any voluntary cooperation. Further experiments show that this result is robust to two important variables: experiencing Trust contracts without any incentives and implicit incentives coming from repeated interaction. Implicit incentives have a strong positive effect on effort only under non-incentive compatible contracts.principal-agent games; gift-exchange experiments; incomplete contracts, explicit incentives; implicit incentives; repeated games; separability; experiments

A practical guide to setting up your Tax Evasion Game

This is the final version of the article. Available on open access from the publisher via the link in this record.Over the last four decades, an important stream of literature has studied tax compliance behaviour in the laboratory through tax evasion games. In this review of over 70 papers, the main results are summarised, highlighting the most prominent features of tax evasion games. The results are interpreted in terms of laboratory tax compliance. Variables that have a positive impact on compliance are a non-student pool of subjects, a loaded frame, a directive way of asking for compliance, a progressive tax regime, redistribution of tax funds, endogenous audits, increased audit probability, larger fines and a one-off tax amnesty. Self-employed income and a complex tax system are expected to have a negative impact, while the impact of earned income, tax rates and public-good funds is unclear and deserves further investigation

ambient environmental inspections in repeated enforcement games

We consider an environmental inspection agency who credibly commits to a permanent observation of ambient pollution at the property line of individual firms. In this setting, standard results in the theory of repeated games generalize to enforcement games. The inspection agency obtains partial compliance without ever penalizing the polluter, even in settings where it would never obtain any compliance in the stage game. We identify under which conditions this is an improvement compared to a game where the agency does not collect prior information. Both equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium behavior can be given a nice intuitive interpretation.environmental enforcement; repeated games

The Effectiveness of Electronic Games (Atari) Reinforcers for Increasing Appropriate Behavior in Handicapped Children

Ten subjects ranging from 9 to 16 years in age wi.th IQ\u27s ranging from 23 to 62 were randomly selected as contingent or noncontingent subjects for two experiments. Five subjects received contingent access to two electronic games for performance within a specified learning session, while five subjects received noncontingent access to the games. These experiments were designed to determine the effect on performance, attending, and compliance skills in the classroom, when contingent access to the electronic games was based on performance. The development of fine motor skills and/or eye-hand coordination skills as a result of game usage was examined. The generalization of any effect to the remainder of the classroom day was also evaluated. The experimental design for these experiments was a single subject multiple baseline design for data on performance with the additional collection of attending and compliance data in a multiple baseline fashion. Probes were utilized to assess generalization effects. A change in performance related to experimental manipulation was noted in three of five of the contingent subjects, while support for subsequent change in attending and compliance was demonstrated by fewer subjects (one subject in regard to attending; three subjects in regard to compliance) . No changes in performance, attending, or compliance related to experimental manipulation were demonstrated by subjects receiving noncontingent access to the games. Nine of ten subjects (contingent and noncontingent) demonstrated gains in age equivalencies on the Upper Limb Coordination subtest of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency in excess of the duration of the experiment. In addition, six of ten subjects demonstrated gains on the Fine Motor Composite of this test

Democracy and compliance in public goods games

I investigate if, how, and why the effect of a contribution rule in a public goods game depends on how it is implemented: endogenously chosen or externally imposed. The rule prescribes full contributions to the public good backed by a nondeterrent sanction for those who do not comply. My experimental design allows me to disentangle to what extent the effect of the contribution rule under democracy is driven by self-selection of treatments, information transmitted via the outcome of the referendum, and democracy per se. In case treatments are endogenously chosen via a democratic decision-making process, the contribution rule significantly increases contributions to the public good. However, democratic participation does not affect participants’ contribution behavior directly, after controlling for self-selection of treatments and the information transmitted by voting

Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?

We explore the influence of social norms on behavior. To do so, we introduce a method for identifying norms, based on the property that social norms reflect social consensus regarding the appropriateness of different possible behaviors. We demonstrate that the norms we elicit, along with a simple model combining concern for norm-compliance with utility for money, predict changes in behavior across several variants of the dictator game in which behavior changes substantially following the introduction of minor contextual variations. Our findings indicate that people care not just about monetary payoffs but also care about the social appropriateness of any action they take. Our work also suggests that a social norm is not always a single action that should or should not be taken, but rather a profile of varying degrees of social appropriateness for different available actions.norms, matching games, dictator games

Pareto improvements by in-kind-transfers

This paper shows that in-kind-transfers are an effective instrument to stabilize agreements when compliance cannot be guaranteed. It demonstrates the weak superiority of in-kind-transfers for a unilateral relationship between two agents. In particular, it proves that, under conditions of perfect knowledge and necessary selfenforcement of contracts, both agents are at least not worse off by in-kind-transfers compared to monetary payments when no selfenforcing contract exists which,is based on monetary payments. This result holds for finitely and for infinitely repeated games.