‘Eerlijk zullen we alles delen’: wat is er eigenlijk mis met economische ongelijkheid?

__Abstract__ Rede, uitgesproken bij de openbare aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar Geschiedenis van het Economisch Denken bij de afdeling Geschiedenis van de Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op vrijdag 17 oktober 2014

Absence of a market in the Dutch balancing mechanism:European rules versus specific investments

The European directives for the electricity industry prescribe the creation of a market for balancing electricity supply and demand. In this paper, we demonstrate that a market for balancing has not emerged in the Dutch electricity industry, and that, instead, the balancing transactions are governed by regulated, long-term contracts and a bidding mechanism. We explain the absence of a balancing market by using the framework of transaction cost economics, in which the efficiency of a market decreases with increasing investments in specific assets. The results of a questionnaire among the energy firms that supply balancing power in the Dutch setting show that these firms have invested in specific physical, temporal and dedicated balancing assets. The need for these specific investments to balance supply and demand does not only explain the absence of a market, but also the lack of participation by small firms in the balancing mechanism. We recommend several policies, such as stimulating technological developments for the storage of electricity and demand side management, which reduce these specific investments in balancing assets, and thereby stimulate the creation of a market and the participation of small firms

Боротьба з бідністю як орієнтир проєвропейської політики

Період європейського самоусвідомлення України триває вже досить довго. Парадоксально, але факт: за будь-яких змін зовнішньополітичної парадигми нашої держави європейська складова не лише не зникає, а й посилюється. Принаймні на теоретичному рівні. Не менш суттєвим, на наш погляд, є й те, що за будь-яких умов український “віртуальний” європеїзм зберігає соціальну аргументацію. До об’єднаної Європи ми прагнемо долучитися переважно задля досягнення заможнішого життя. Водночас на практичному рівні наші уявлення щодо ключових соціальних ознак реального європеїзму й досі лишаються досить розмитими, якщо не спотвореними. І досі у нас фахово не визначено статус ключових соціальних чинників у тих інтеграційних моделях, до яких так чи інакше схиляються різні політичні сили країни, а також місце цих чинників у ключових напрямках і механізмах співпраці з ЄС. Зокрема, це стосується проблеми бідності. Щоб наздогнати Європу за рівнем добробуту (і це вже не парадокс), потрібно спочатку наздогнати її за рівнем бідності. Євроінтеграційна реальність є такою, що соціальна прірва розділяє народи значно надійніше, аніж будь-яка “залізна заслона” чи Берлінський мур

Kick It With Me: The Role of Social Bonding Behavior in Relationship Initiation

Behaviors known to promote social bonds in existing relationships – participant’s affectionate touch, shared laughter and partner’s gratitude expression – have seldom been examined during relationship initiation. Using a novel relationship initiation paradigm, we demonstrate that social behavior signals affiliation in initial interactions. A diverse sample of first-year undergraduates (N = 143) spontaneously-reported anytime they met someone new with potential for friendship or romantic interest; we tracked relationship developments three-days, one-week and approximately two months later. From initial interactions, we showed three behaviors were associated with post-interaction interest in affiliating with new social partners. We found evidence for theoretically-motived mechanisms of this process and that these effects held when controlling for social perceptual alternative explanations. We examined if behavior predicted future relationship development and found shared laughter consistently did. Post-interaction interest in affiliating explained the association between each focal behavior and future indicators of relationship development. Implications for relationship initiation are discussed.Master of Art

Inflammation and intimate others: How the body contributes to close relationships via inflammation

The body is an important contributor to social experience. One specific biological system, the immune system, is known to coordinate social behavior and cognition. Until recently, research on psychoneuroimmunology (i.e., how the immune system impacts and is impacted by our psychological/neurological contexts) has rarely considered how this coordination unfolds in a specific social context: interactions with close others. Although prior research has focused on heightened inflammation predicting social withdrawal, new theory and evidence have begun to suggest social responses to inflammation may differ based on the social target; specifically, humans may approach a close other when experiencing heightened inflammation. Close relationships, and the processes that occur within them, are linked with daily functioning and health. Understanding how the body gives rise to those processes is an important empirical question. By leveraging theory and methods from relationship science, I test the hypothesis that inflammation is positively associated with affiliation-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward a close other in three studies (Chapters 2-4). In the first study (Chapter 2, N = 31), I examine the association between a mild inflammation-induction via the influenza vaccine and automatic social behavior toward differential targets (a close other and strangers). In the second study (Chapter 3, N = 55), inflammation levels and inflammatory reactivity to the influenza vaccine are separately used to predict social-connection-related thoughts, feelings, and behavior toward one close other in daily life. In the final study (Chapter 4, N = 158), I investigate how individual differences in approach orientation toward a romantic partner modulate the association between systemic inflammation (i.e., C-reactive protein or CRP) and sexual well-being. These studies contribute to both psychoneuroimmunology and relationship science by demonstrating how ebbs and flows in peripheral immune activity influence thoughts and behaviors toward our closest others in everyday life.Doctor of Philosoph

No Black Box and No Black Hole: from Social Capital to Gift Exchange

In this paper, we draw on the literature about gift exchange to suggest a conceptualization of the emergence, maintenance and use of social capital (SK). We thus open up the black box of how social relations are established, and are able to indicate what can be meaningfully ascribed to social capital. Social capital as a concept cannot be invoked at will to explain situations that are primarily perceived as favorable. Instead, when the way in which social capital emerges, maintained and used is conceptually clarified, it becomes clear that situations perceived as unfavorable can be ascribed to SK as well, and it becomes clear that SK cannot be drawn on at will, by just anybody. SK resides in what we call a social capital community

Lesser evil: Involuntary governance choices in the electricity industry

Governmental liberalization policies provide a natural experiment for examining firms’ preferences for governance structures when adapting, voluntarily or involuntarily, to regulatory changes in the business environment. We investigate the involuntary governance choices of the energy firms in the Dutch electricity industry after the European electricity directives of 1996 and 2003. The governance choices are involuntary, because the directives prohibit the energy firms to organize their electricity transactions in the comparatively efficient governance solution of the vertically integrated firm. After the implementation of the directives, the energy firms claim to prefer quasi-integration instead of the market that is prescribed by the directives and national laws for the electricity industry. In this paper, we use transaction cost economics to study the governance structures. We complement the standard transaction cost analysis by incorporating adaptation as the process of adjustment between governance structures that can explain the involuntary governance choices. We explain how suboptimal governance choices are made, on the basis of both adaptation costs and misalignment costs. We present evidence on the relation between the preferred governance structures, expected adaptation costs and expected misalignment costs, based on expert information