Compliance by Believing: An Experimental Exploration on Social Norms and Impartial Agreements

The main contribution of this paper is twofold. First of all, it focuses on the decisional process that leads to the creation of a social norm. Secondly, it analyses the mechanisms through which subjects conform their behaviour to the norm. In particular, our aim is to study the role and the nature of Normative and Empirical Expectations and their influence on people's decisions. The tool is the Exclusion Game, a sort of 'triple mini-dictator game'. It represents a situation where 3 subjects - players A - have to decide how to allocate a sum S among themselves and a fourth subject - player B - who has no decisional power. The experiment consists of three treatments. In the Baseline Treatment participants are randomly distributed in groups of four players and play the Exclusion Game. In the Agreement Treatment in each group participants are invited to vote for a specific non-binding allocation rule before playing the Exclusion Game. In the Outsider Treatment, after the voting procedure and before playing the Exclusion Game, a player A for each group (the outsider) is reassigned to a different group and instructed about the rule chosen by the new group. In all the treatments, at the end of the game and before players are informed about the decisions taken during the Exclusion Game by the other co-players, first order and second order expectations (both normative and empirical) are elicited through a brief questionnaire. The first result we obtained is that subjects' choices are in line with their empirical (not normative) expectations. The second result is that even a non-binding agreement induces convergence of empirical expectations - and, consequently, of choices. The third results is that expectation of conformity is higher in the partner protocol. This implies that a single outsider breaks the 'trust and cooperation' equilibrium.fairness, social norms, beliefs, psychological games, experimental games

The propensity to patent with horizontally differentiated products: An empirical investigation

In this paper we empirically investigate the theoretical results obtained in Zaby (2009). From the theoretical model, which introduces the decision to patent into a setting with horizontally differentiated products we deduce several hypotheses and test these empirically. We find that the propensity to patent increases when market entry costs decrease. Furthermore, if the disclosure requirement linked to a patent has an impact, the propensity to patent decreases with the strength of the disclosure effect. --patenting decision,secrecy,disclosure requirement,market entry,horizontal product differentiation

Convergence of Firm-Level Productivity, Globalisation, Information Technology and Competition: Evidence from France

Studies of firm-level data have shown that there is a huge dispersion of productivity across firms even when industries are narrowly defined. So there is a significant opportunity for the least productive firms to catch up to the most productive. The formers' convergence could therefore constitute an important part of productivity growth at the macroeconomic level. This article sheds light on this convergence process in the 1990s and the 2000s in France and on some of the factors which can explain it. Productivity convergence was stronger for labour productivity than for total factor productivity. But most importantly the speed of convergence has slowed during the course of the 1990s, a fact which is explained principally by the acceleration of the productivity of firms on the technological frontier. Three possible explanations of these stylised facts are considered: globalisation, information technology, and competition. Globalisation and information technology may have benefited the most productive firms more and the growth of competition may at the same time have stimulated the productivity of firms at the frontier while discouraging the convergence of the least productive firms.Convergence, productivity, TFP, globalisation, ICT, competition

Committees versus individuals: an experimental analysis of monetary policy decision-making

We report the results of an experimental analysis of monetary policy decision-making under uncertainty. A large sample of economically literate students from the London School of Economics played a simple monetary policy game, as both individuals and committees of five players. Our findings - that groups make better decisions than individuals - accord with previous work by Blinder and Morgan. The experiment also attempted to establish why group decision-making is superior: although some improvement was related to committees taking decisions by majority voting, a significant additional committee benefit was associated with members being able to share information and observe each other's voting behaviour.monetary policy, experimental economics, central banking, uncertainty

Occupational Mobility of Immigrants in a Low Skilled Economy: The Spanish Case

We analyze the occupational mobility of immigrants between their origin countries and Spain and its determinants. We use microdata from the Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes to compute an internationally harmonized occupational status index (ISEI) that permits to quantify and properly analyze this kind of mobility. The obtained evidence shows that, in general, immigrants experience a strong occupational downgrading in Spain when compared to their origin countries. This fact is due to the strong downgrading they experience when entering the Spanish labour market and their low improvement in the following years.immigration, occupational mobility, Spain

Open Innovation, ambiguity and technological convergence

Objectives. Current paper aims to provide a fresh conceptual framework on the relationship among open innovation, decision ambiguity, and technological convergence. We argue that there is a curvilinear relationship between open innovation and both technological convergence and ambiguity. Contained level of convergence and ambiguity foster open innovation, whilst an excess of them is an impediment to collaboration. Technological convergence further acts as a moderator for ambiguity, in light of the benefits of isomorphism. Methodology. We propose a conceptual framework for open innovation decisions after accurately reviewing the main literature antecedents. Findings. We suggest an inverse u-shaped relationship between open innovation and either ambiguity or technological convergence. Research limits. In future, the theoretical framework proposed by thus study has to be tested with robust and proper statistical techniques on large scale samples. Practical implications. The model offers a heuristic for open innovation decisions under ambiguity. Originality of the study. To the best of our knowledge, the relationship linking open innovation, technological convergence and ambiguity emerges as a literature gap. This study tackles this issue, proposing an interpretation for the analysis of alliances decision in innovation

Quantum Heat Engines, the Second Law and Maxwell's Daemon

We introduce a class of quantum heat engines which consists of two-energy-eigenstate systems, the simplest of quantum mechanical systems, undergoing quantum adiabatic processes and energy exchanges with heat baths, respectively, at different stages of a cycle. Armed with this class of heat engines and some interpretation of heat transferred and work performed at the quantum level, we are able to clarify some important aspects of the second law of thermodynamics. In particular, it is not sufficient to have the heat source hotter than the sink, but there must be a minimum temperature difference between the hotter source and the cooler sink before any work can be extracted through the engines. The size of this minimum temperature difference is dictated by that of the energy gaps of the quantum engines involved. Our new quantum heat engines also offer a practical way, as an alternative to Szilard's engine, to physically realise Maxwell's daemon. Inspired and motivated by the Rabi oscillations, we further introduce some modifications to the quantum heat engines with single-mode cavities in order to, while respecting the second law, extract more work from the heat baths than is otherwise possible in thermal equilibria. Some of the results above are also generalisable to quantum heat engines of an infinite number of energy levels including 1-D simple harmonic oscillators and 1-D infinite square wells.Comment: Now 18 pages, 8 figure