Self-Commitment-Institutions and Cooperation in Overlapping Generations Games

This paper focuses on a two-period OLG economy with public imperfect observability over the intergenerational cooperative dimension. Individual endowment is at free disposal and perfectly observable. In this environment we study how a new mechanism, we call Self-Commitment-Institution (SCI), outperforms personal and community enforcement in achieving higher ex-ante e¢ ciency. Social norms with and without SCI are characterized. If social norms with SCI are implemented, agents might freely dispose of their endowment. As long as they reduce their marginal gain from deviation in terms of current utility, they also credibly self-commit on intergenerational cooperation. Under quite general conditions we .nd that, even if individual strategies are still characterized by behavioral uncertainty, the introduction of SCI relaxes the inclination toward opportunistic behavior and sustains higher e¢ ciency compared to social norms without SCI. We quantify the value of SCI and investigate the role of memory with di¤erent social norms. Finally, applications on intergenerational public good games and transfer games with productive SCI are providedCooperation; Free disposal; Imperfect public monitoring; Memory; Overlapping generation game; Self-Commitment Institution;

Self-Commitment-Institutions and Cooperation in Overlapping Generations Games

This paper focuses on a two-period OLG economy with public imperfect observability over the intergenerational cooperative dimension. Individual endowment is at free disposal and perfectly observable. In this environment we study how a new mechanism, we call Self-Commitment-Institution (SCI), outperforms personal and community enforcement in achieving higher ex-ante efficiency. Social norms with and without SCI are characterized. If social norms with SCI are implemented, agents might freely dispose of their endowment. As long as they reduce their marginal gain from deviation in terms of current utility, they also credibly self-commit on intergenerational cooperation. Under quite general conditions we find that, even if individual strategies are still characterized by behavioral uncertainty, the introduction of SCI relaxes the inclination toward opportunistic behavior and sustains higher efficiency compared to social norms without SCI. We quantify the value of SCI and investigate the role of memory with different social norms. Finally, applications on intergenerational public good games and transfer games with productive SCI are provided.Cooperation, Free disposal, Imperfect public monitoring, Memory, Overlapping generation game, Self-Commitment Institution

Intergenerational Education for Social Inclusion and Solidarity: The Case Study of the EU Funded Project "Connecting Generations"

This paper reflects on lessons learned from a validated model of international collaboration based on research and practice. During the European Year for Active Ageing, a partnership of seven organizations from the European Union plus Turkey implemented the Lifelong Learning Programme partnership “Connecting Generations‘ which involved universities, non-governmental organizations, third age Universities and municipalities in collaboration with local communities. Reckoning that Europe has dramatically changed in its demographic composition and is facing brand new challenges regarding intergenerational and intercultural solidarity, each partner formulated and tested innovative and creative practices that could enhance better collaboration and mutual understanding between youth and senior citizens, toward a more inclusive Europe for all. Several innovative local practices have experimented, attentively systematized and peer-valuated among the partners. On the basis of a shared theoretical framework coherent with EU and Europe and Training 2020 Strategy, an action-research approach was adopted throughout the project in order to understand common features that have been replicated and scaled up since today

Memory transition between communicating agents

Abstract: What happens to a memory when it has been externalised and embodied but has not reached its addressee yet? A letter that has been written but has not been read, a monument before it is unveiled or a Neolithic tool buried in the ground – all these objects harbour human memories engrained in their physicality; messages intended for those who will read the letter, admire the monument and hold the tool. According to Ilyenkov’s theory of objective idealism, the conscious and wilful input encoded in all manmade objects as the ‘ideal’ has an objective existence, independent from the author, but this existence lasts only while memories are shared between communicating parties. If all human minds were absent from the world for a period of time, the ‘ideal’, or memories, would cease to exist. They would spring back to existence, however, once humans re-entered the world. Ilyenkov’s analysis of memories existing outside an individual human consciousness is informative and thorough but, following his line of thought, we would have to accept an ontological gap in the process of memory acquisition, storage and transmission. If there is a period, following memory acquisition and receding its transmission, when memories plainly do not exist, then each time a new reader, spectator or user perceives them, he or she must create the author’s memories ex nihilo. Bergson’s theory of duration and intuition can help us to resolve this paradox. This paper will explore the ontological characteristics of memory passage in communication taken at different stages of the process. There will be an indicationof how the findings of this investigation could be applicable to concrete cases of memory transmission. In particular, this concerns intergenerational communication, technological memory, the use of digital devices and the Internet

Intergenerational Digital Storytelling: four racconti for a new approach

Digital storytelling has been slowly penetrating the world of education and social development since a while. Intergenerational learning seems a promising and somehow natural domain for digital storytelling, as it offers a perfect venue to bring together memory and wisdom with digital media skills AND VIBRANT COMMUNICATION. This paper presents the efforts made by Associazione seed to transfer digital storytelling to intergenerational learning, based on its previous work with the Digital Storytelling for Development model in many fields

Us, Them, and Me! Intergroup and personal challenges of aging successfully

This Keynote Address was delivered at the 73 rd . Annual New York State Communication Association Conference on October 16, 2015. After an anecdotal foray into how he came to study “geronto-communication”, Dr. Giles reviewed his and others’ research and theory on the interfaces between intergenerational communication, subjective health, and aging across many Western and Asian settings. This programmatic body of work was, in large part, guided by communication accommodation theory (which was briefly overviewed). Thereafter, Dr. Giles introduced various views of successful aging and the role of communication practices therein. This led to the formulation and testing of a new theoretical framework, the communication ecology model of successful aging. The thrust of this work is even more poignant as lifespan boundaries and expectations are being incrementally extended

Growing up and growing old with television: peripheral viewers and the centrality of care

This essay draws on feminist work on the ethics of care to both (re)establish an alliance between the very young and the very old and to begin to challenge the normative models of subjectivity and spectatorship that circulate within film and television studies. Through textual experiences of time and space and the operations of care, we emphasize the reciprocity and interdependence between generations. This recognition, we argue, offers a new mode of engagement with the challenges of ‘growing up’ and ‘growing old’ on and with television. In our alignment of older and younger audiences we challenge the normative chain of associations where ageing is represented as growth, and growth is associated with development. For the child, this model appears unproblematic even inevitable: ageing = growth = development. In contrast, ageing for older individuals is associated not with growth and development but with decline. A positive alignment between childhood and old age may offer an understanding of this motion (between the status, capacity and experience of child and older adult) as continuous, as an oscillation that is often made evident in the interdependence between child and adult. This, we believe, is mirrored in certain textual and experiential characteristics of television, and we explore it through close textual analysis of children’s programmes Katie Morag, Old Jack’s Boat and Mr Alzheimer’s and Me. These are programmes that not only offer representations of caring intergenerational relationships (of grandchild and grandparent) but express, in their seaside locations, an ebb and flow that is mapped onto experiences of both television and of intergenerational care

Intergenerational Narratives: The Personal is Professional

What began as a teacher-student relationship between educators Amy Brook Snider and Jodi Kushins has developed into a friendship and working partnership. At first, they did not consider their continuing long-distance connection as intergenerational. They shared experiences and exchanged ideas oblivious to the great difference in their ages. But as online tools, research, and communication emerged as a central focus of Jodi’s life and teaching, they became aware that this development might lead to an intergenerational digital divide between them. In order to explore their different responses to what has been called screen culture, they brought back their puppet alter egos for a presentation-cum-puppet show at the National Art Education Association conference in Chicago in 2016. This paper traces the history of the shifting relationship of two art educators, along with an extended excerpt from the script for their second puppet show