Intermediated Social Preferences: Altruism in an Algorithmic Era

What are the consequences of intermediating moral responsibility through complex organizations or transactions? This paper examines individual decision-making when choices are known to be obfuscated under randomization. It reports the results of a data entry experiment in an online labor market. Individuals enter data, grade another individual’s work, and decide to split a bonus. However, before they report their decision, they are randomized into settings with different degrees of intermediation. The key finding is that less generosity results when graders are told the split might be implemented by a new procurement algorithm. Those whose decisions are averaged or randomly selected among a set of graders are more generous relative to the asocial treatment. These findings relate to “the great transformation” whereby moral mentalities are shaped by modes of (a)social interaction

The impact of rate design and net metering on the bill savings from distributed PV for residential customers in California

Net metering has become a widespread policy in the U.S. for supporting distributed photovoltaics (PV) adoption. Though specific design details vary, net metering allows customers with PV to reduce their electric bills by offsetting their consumption with PV generation, independent of the timing of the generation relative to consumption - in effect, compensating the PV generation at retail electricity rates (Rose et al. 2009). While net metering has played an important role in jump-starting the residential PV market in the U.S., challenges to net metering policies have emerged in a number of states and contexts, and alternative compensation methods are under consideration. Moreover, one inherent feature of net metering is that the value of the utility bill savings it provides to customers with PV depends heavily on the structure of the underlying retail electricity rate, as well as on the characteristics of the customer and PV system. Consequently, the value of net metering - and the impact of moving to alternative compensation mechanisms - can vary substantially from one customer to the next. For these reasons, it is important for policymakers and others that seek to support the development of distributed PV to understand both how the bill savings varies under net metering, and how the bill savings under net metering compares to other possible compensation mechanisms. To advance this understanding, we analyze the bill savings from PV for residential customers of California's two largest electric utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). The analysis is based on hourly load data from a sample of 215 residential customers located in the service territories of the two utilities, matched with simulated hourly PV production for the same time period based on data from the nearest of 73 weather stations in the state

Conservation incentives work group report to the seventy-second legislative assembly

As part of legislation enacted into law in 2001 related to conservation incentives for private landowners (HB 3564), the Oregon Legislature directed the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Forestry to review state statutes, rules, policies and programs that affect landowner decisions to implement conservation strategies. The agencies were directed to complete this review in consultation with other relevant state agencies and public and private organizations. The legislation also directed the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry to report to the Seventy-Second Legislative Assembly on recommended changes to state statutes, rules, policies, and programs. In May 2002, the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry convened the Conservation Incentives Work Group (the "Work Group"). The Work Group was assisted by professional facilitators, paid for by a grant from Oregon's Public Policy Dispute Resolution Program, and consisted of a diverse set of representatives from numerous stakeholder groups. As directed by HB 3564, the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry, through effective use of the Work Group, developed recommendations for improvements to incentive programs and particular regulatory schemes that will encourage landowners and businesses to voluntarily invest in the improvement of natural resources to maintain the long-term ecological, economic, and social values that certain private lands provide to the state of Oregon. This is the report of those recommendations.Report to the seventy-second legislative assembly. Presented by the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Oregon Department of Forestry. February 2003

Financing Bologna, the Internationally Mobile Students in European Higher Education

Despite the importance of the Bologna process for the mobility of students, and the further mobility of graduates, as well as for peace, growth and welfare in that area, nothing has been decided so far for the financing of internationally mobile students, so that the burden of that financing, usually public, is supported by the host country. Moreover in- and outflows of students show imbalances and such imbalances are expected to increase with mobility. Therefore, we first suggest and discuss an alternative system transferring the responsibility for financing higher education to the country of origin of the students (except for those from developing countries). Origin country finances students from its territory through a two-part portable voucher: one part is dedicated to the financing of the true cost of studies, the other part intends to support student’s life and might be designed in such a way that some social goals are reached. Those vouchers can be used anywhere in a defined international area provided it is in the designed field of studies and in a school whose quality has been recognized by the issuing country. Some actual systems at work in the world, which prefigure aspects of the proposal, are presented in appendix. Second, we show that, when coupled with a compensation of the origin country in case of international career of the graduate, the system proposed in this paper might be equivalent to a centralized efficient design. JEL Code: H41, H77, I20