A Survey of Theories of the Family

This review explores the theory of household technology and the associated possibilities for distributing utility among household members. It also explores decision theory within the household, drawing on standard consumer decision theory. The review discusses models of equilbrium in which families are formed by persons voluntarily choosing mates. This theory is analogous to ``Tiebout theory'' in urban economics, where the objects of choice include not only the amount of public goods supplied in each city, but also which individuals live in each place. An aspect of family life that has fewer parallels in the economics of market economies is intrafamilial affection. The final section of this paper reviews a growing theoretical literature on love, altruism and the family.Center for Research on Economic and Social Theory, Department of Economics, University of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/101098/1/ECON082.pd

Co-Worker Altruism and Unemployment

It is well-known that social relationships and altruism among workers foster cooperation in the workplace and, therefore, may have beneficial effects for firms. Yet it is unclear how and to what extent co-worker altruism impacts labor market outcomes. In this paper, we find that, although co-worker altruism may be seamless in good times, it may impact the functioning of labor markets during bad times. Specifically, co-worker altruism may potentially lead to wage rigidity and involuntary unemployment in economic downturns. These results seem to be consistent with recent empirical findings

Essays on Uncertainty in Public Economics and Cooperative Bargaining

This dissertation consists of two parts. The theme connecting the two parts is the role of uncertainty. The first part focuses on the role of uncertainty in cooperative bargaining and public decision making. I provide an axiomatic characterization of the normalized utilitarian solution to bargaining problems involving uncertainty. In addition to three basic axioms that are common in the bargaining literature, I propose the axiom of weak linearity to characterize the solution. In the second part I study uncertainty in non-cooperative games by designing a principal agent model of public bailouts. The first essay in this part sets up the model and shows that the moral hazard problem, namely the Samaritan\u27s dilemma, exists without an altruistic principal. The second essay in this part builds upon the previous essay and focuses on the informational elements in a bailout game. Mainly, I show the existence of a separating equilibrium, where public bailouts serve as a mechanism to reveal essential information to outsiders and in which the good-type agents can benefit from rejecting a bailout offer

An intergenerational theory of the consumption function

This thesis presents a theory of the consumption function called the 'Inter- Generational Hypothesis' (IGH). The theory starts from the premise that individuals derive utility not only from their own consumption, but also from the welfare of their offspring. Individuals are supposed to maximise an intergenerationally altruistic utility function subject to a lifetime budget constraint and so derive their optimal consumption and bequest plans. From these plans, it is possible to construct an individual's consumption function. This contains earnings and inheritance terms, and is non-linear in earnings; this is consistently aggregated over all living individuals to yield the aggregate IGH consumption function. A feature of this function is the rich set of intergenerational information hypotheses it is able to encompass; there are also several implications with respect to earnings redistribution policy. The IGH function is estimated using 23 years of post-war UK data, and tested against rival consumption models, including Hall's (1978) REPIH. The principal finding is that the data do not appear to be consistent with either model in their pure form; however, they support a hybrid consumption function where a proportion of the population behave according to the altruistic IGH, and where the rest behave according to the 'selfish' REPIH. An additional finding, necessarily tentative given the imperfections of the distributional data, is a failure to detect significant non-linearity in the aggregate consumption function. This result casts doubt on the usefulness of policies designed to redistribute incomes in order to affect aggregate consumption

Taxation

This Handbook entry presents a conceptual, normative overview of the subject of taxation. It emphasizes the relationships among the main functions of taxation -- notably, raising revenue, redistributing income, and correcting externalities -- and the mapping between these functions and various forms of taxation. Different types of taxation as well as expenditures on transfers and public goods are each integrated into a common optimal tax framework with the income tax and commodity taxes at the core. Additional topics addressed include a range of dynamic issues, the unit of taxation, tax administration and enforcement, and tax equity.

Exploring the coaching relationship in health coaching and employment service with long-term unemployed using Repertory Grid Technique

Coaching in general and health coaching are increasingly used to change (health-related) behaviour. However, little research exists on the specific impact factors of coaching and especially on what constitutes effective (health) coaching relationships. This research explores in a jobcenter in Germany what contributes to effective (health) coaching relationships in health coaching and employment service coaching. It assesses both the perspectives of the (health) coaches and the (health) coaching clients, who are long-term unemployed people with health restrictions. Specifically, this research investigates how the participants construe effective (health) coaching relationships. Furthermore, it addresses the commonalities and differences in the construction of effective (health) coaching relationships within/between coaches and clients and within/between coaching domains. In addition, it is explored how consistently participants in the different groups evaluate effective (health) coaching relationships. Based on a phenomenological constructivist epistemology, the Repertory Grid Technique is used within a Personal Construct Psychology framework for data collection to elicit latent constructs signifying effective coaching relationships from coaches and coaching clients, as this technique is especially useful for exploring individual and interpersonal aspects of human relationships. Results indicate the effectiveness of Personal Construct Psychology and Repertory Grid Technique for Coaching Psychology research on the coaching relationship. The content analysis identified 27 themes of which 12 were relevant to the development of effective (health) relationships for the total sample. Differential analysis identified themes of particular importance for the different subgroups. Conclusions after structural analysis suggest that these categories represent a ‘pool’ of important factors for effective (health) coaching relationships, from which quite individual constellations of these factors make the (health) coaching relationship effective. The findings theoretically and methodologically contribute to Coaching Psychology. Furthermore, the findings are of utility for coaching practise and can help to create ethical, more effective (health) coaching relationships. The limitations of this study, its implications for further research, and coaching practise are discussed