The Multinational Corporation: a Tentative Appraisal

The purpose of this investigation is to describe and document certain behavioral characteristics of the multinational corporations and to point out some of the special problems they create for economists. Theirs is a new way of organizing and controlling international business units and relatively little is known about the consequences for economics and politics. The primary area of study with which this investigation is concerned is the multinational corporations' economic power and the inability of nations to effectively control it

Incentives and Prosocial Behavior

We develop a theory of prosocial behavior that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. Rewards or punishments (whether material or imagerelated) create doubt about the true motive for which good deeds are performed and this “overjustification effect” can induce a partial or even net crowding out of prosocial behavior by extrinsic incentives. We also identify the settings that are conducive to multiple social norms and more generally those that make individual actions complements or substitutes, which we show depends on whether stigma or honor is (endogenously) the dominant reputational concern. Finally, we analyze the socially optimal level of incentives and how monopolistic or competitive sponsors depart from it. Sponsor competition is shown to potentially reduce social welfare

Decolonising imperial heroes:Britain and France

The heroes of the British and French empires stood at the vanguard of the vibrant cultures of imperialism that emerged in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet imperial heroes did not disappear after 1945 as British and French flags were lowered around the world. On the contrary, their reputations underwent a variety of metamorphoses in both the former metropoles and the former colonies. The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History presents an overview of the changing history and historiography of imperial heroes half a century after the end of empire