Leadership and Gender: An Experiment

We present an information based model of leadership in a setting that exhibits the familiar problems of free riding and coordination failure. Leaders have superior information about the value of the project in hand and can send a costly signal to their uninformed followers to persuade them to cooperate in the project. Followers voluntarily choose whether or not to follow the better informed leader. We provide experimental evidence that, when the leaders� gender is revealed to their followers, female subjects hesitate to lead (send a costly signal) while followers� behavior does not indicate any gender discrimination. Such behavior is not observed among the male leaders.Leadership, Information, Gender, Free Riding, Coordination Problem

Are Claims Of Transparency All They Are Cracked Up To Be?

The current “buzzword” among leaders is “transparency.” Hardly a day goes by that a group leader (politician, manager, or administrator) doesn’t state that he values transparency and will provide full disclosure of his information and actions. This project tests experimentally whether or not leaders, when given a choice, actually reveal a preference for transparency. Our experiment is based on a theoretical model by Komai, Stegeman, and Hermalin (2007). Fifteen subjects are randomly assigned to five groups of three. Each group separately participates in an investment game with three possible return scenarios (high, average, and low) that are equally likely to happen. Investing in the low-return scenario is not profitable to either individual group members or the whole group. In the average-return scenario, group well-being is maximized if all the group members invest in the project, but full cooperation may not be achieved simply because the dominant strategy of the individuals is to free ride on others. In the high-return scenario full cooperation is also optimal for the group, but subjects may or may not coordinate on full cooperation because they may fail to coordinate their efforts with the others. We consider a leader-follower setting. Only one member of the group (the leader) observes the scenario. The leader moves before the rest of the group members and first decides whether or not to invest in the project. The leader then chooses between two information regimes: revealing his decision and the return scenario to the rest of the group or revealing his decision but not the return scenario. Absent any information provided by their leader, followers know only the possible return scenarios and their likelihoods. They do not know which scenario is assigned to their group. Given the leaders’ information choices and investment decisions, the relevant information will be conveyed to the followers. The followers then will separately and simultaneously decide whether or not to invest in the project (followers do not know anything about the different information regimes). This is realistic in many real-world circumstances because in many business or political environments the leaders have exclusive access to critical information and are in charge of deciding whether or not to reveal the details of their information and actions to their potential followers; in many circumstances it is practically difficult for the followers to verify the real information or the leaders’ actions.Transparency, leading by example, free-riding, cooperation.

Camarões de mar profundo do gênero Glyphocrangon A.Milne-Edwards (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea, Glyphocrangonidae) coletados ao largo do sudeste do Brasil durante o Programa Revizee

This paper reports on species of the deep-water shrimp genus Glyphocrangon A. Milne-Edwards, 1881 collected during Revizee Program in 1999 and 2000 from southwestern Atlantic off Brazil (ranging from 12°S to 21°S) conducted by R/V “Thalassa”. The collection is represented by the following eight species: G. aculeata A. Milne Edwards, 1881; G. alispina Chace, 1939; G. aurantiaca Holthuis, 1971; G. longirostris (Smith, 1882); G. neglecta Faxon, 1896; G. nobilis A. Milne Edwards, 1881; G. sculpta (Smith, 1882); and G. spinicauda A. Milne-Edwards, 1881. The four species, G. aurantiaca, G. longirostris, G. nobilis and G. sculptaare recorded from the southwestern Atlantic (southeast Brazil) for the first time, with considerable range extensions to south. Brief diagnoses are given for the species.Este trabalho registra as espécies de camarão de mar profundo do gênero Glyphocrangon A.Milne-Edwards, 1881, coletados durante o Programa Revizee em 1999 e 2000 no sudoeste do Atlântico, ao largo do Brasil (de 12°S a 21°S) realizado pelo N/O. “Thalassa”. A coleção é representada por oito espécies: G. aculeata A.Milne Edwards, 1881; G. alispina Chace, 1939; G. aurantiaca Holthuis, 1971; G. longirostris (Smith, 1882); G. neglecta Faxon, 1896; G. nobilis A. Milne Edwards, 1881; G. sculpta (Smith, 1882); and G. spinicauda A.Milne- Edwards, 1881. Quatro espécies, G. aurantiaca, G. longirostris, G. nobilis and G. sculpta, são registradas pela primeira vez para o Atlântico sudoeste (sudeste do Brasil), com significativas extensões de distribuição meridional. Breves diagnoses são apresentadas para as espécies