An Experimental Study in the Crowding-Out Effect of Public Transfers in a Model with Multiple Families

We study an overlapping-generations experiment with multiple families in which redistributional transfers can take the form of support to the elderly or grants to children.Supporting the old is a purely inter-generational (intra-family) transfer, whereas grants to children also involve an element of intra-generational (inter-family) solidarity.Our treatment variable is the tax rate determining the amount of redistribution by means of the compulsory pension scheme.We investigate to which degree compulsory solidarity crowds out voluntary solidarity.We also consider whether voluntary solidarity relies more on grants to children or on support to the old aged, and the mechanisms which are used in eliciting transfers from family members from other generations.within-family transfers;overlapping generations;redistributive public-pension system;crowding out of private transfers;reciprocity

Maximizing the effect of visual feedback for pronunciation instruction: A comparative analysis of three approaches

Visual feedback, in which learners visually analyze acoustic speech characteristics, has been shown to significantly improve pronunciation, but extant research has varied widely with respect to the target feature, length of the intervention, and type of intervention. This study presents a comparative analysis of three methods of visual feedback for L2 segmental pronunciation instruction. These methods, all focused on training voice onset time for English-speaking learners of Spanish, differed in duration of instruction (i.e., short and long) and the nature of each intervention (i.e., phonemes presented simultaneously or sequentially). Results show that while all forms of visual feedback significantly improve L2 Spanish pronunciation, evidenced by a reduction in voice onset time, the greatest improvement was found following both longer treatments and a sequential approach. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed

An Experimental Study in the Crowding-Out Effect of Public Transfers in a Model with Multiple Families

We study an overlapping-generations experiment with multiple families in which redistributional transfers can take the form of support to the elderly or grants to children.Supporting the old is a purely inter-generational (intra-family) transfer, whereas grants to children also involve an element of intra-generational (inter-family) solidarity.Our treatment variable is the tax rate determining the amount of redistribution by means of the compulsory pension scheme.We investigate to which degree compulsory solidarity crowds out voluntary solidarity.We also consider whether voluntary solidarity relies more on grants to children or on support to the old aged, and the mechanisms which are used in eliciting transfers from family members from other generations

Ethical Free Riding: When Honest People Find Dishonest Partners

Corruption is often the product of coordinated rule violations. Here, we investigated how such corrupt collaboration emerges and spreads when people can choose their partners versus when they cannot. Participants were assigned a partner and could increase their payoff by coordinated lying. After several interactions, they were either free to choose whether to stay with or switch their partner or forced to stay with or switch their partner. Results reveal that both dishonest and honest people exploit the freedom to choose a partner. Dishonest people seek a partner who will also lie—a “partner in crime.” Honest people, by contrast, engage in ethical free riding: They refrain from lying but also from leaving dishonest partners, taking advantage of their partners’ lies. We conclude that to curb collaborative corruption, relying on people’s honesty is insufficient. Encouraging honest individuals not to engage in ethical free riding is essential.Social decision makin

Discretionary sanctions and rewards in the repeated inspection game

We experimentally investigate a repeated “inspection game” where, in the stage game, an employee can either work or shirk and an employer simultaneously chooses to inspect or not inspect. The unique equilibrium of the stage game is in mixed strategies with positive probabilities of shirking/inspecting while combined payoffs are maximized when the employee works and the employer does not inspect. We examine the effects of allowing the employer discretion to sanction or reward the employee after observing stage game payoffs. When employers have limited discretion, and can only apply sanctions and/or rewards following an inspection, we find that both instruments are equally effective in reducing shirking and increasing joint earnings. When employers have discretion to reward and/or sanction independently of whether they inspect we find that rewards are more effective than sanctions. In treatments where employers can combine sanctions and rewards employers rely mainly on rewards and outcomes closely resemble those of treatments where only rewards are possible

The impact of relative position and returns on sacrifice and reciprocity: an experimental study using individual decisions

We present a comprehensive experimental design that makes it possible to characterize other-regarding preferences and their relationship to the decision maker’s relative position. Participants are faced with a large number of decisions involving variations in the trade-offs between own and other’s payoffs, as well as in other potentially important factors like the decision maker’s relative position. We find that: (1) choices are responsive to the cost of helping and hurting others; (2) The weight a decision maker places on others’ monetary payoffs depends on whether the decision maker is in an advantageous or disadvantageous relative position; and (3) We find no evidence of reciprocity of the type linked to menu-dependence. The results of a mixture-model estimation show considerable heterogeneity in subjects’ motivations and confirm the absence of reciprocal motives. Pure selfish behavior is the most frequently observed behavior. Among the subjects exhibiting social preferences, social-welfare maximization is the most frequent, followed by inequality-aversion and by competitiveness

Phase-transformation and precipitation kinetics in vanadium micro-alloyed steels by in-situ, simultaneous neutron diffraction and SANS

In-situ Neutron Diffraction and Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) are employed for the first time simultaneously in order to reveal the interaction between the austenite to ferrite phase transformation and the precipitation kinetics during isothermal annealing at 650 and at 700 °C in three steels with different vanadium (V) and carbon (C) concentrations. Austenite-to-ferrite phase transformation is observed in all three steels at both temperatures. The phase transformation is completed during a 10 h annealing treatment in all cases. The phase transformation is faster at 650 than at 700 °C for all alloys. Additions of vanadium and carbon to the steel composition cause a retardation of the phase transformation. The effect of each element is explained through its contribution to the Gibbs free energy dissipation. The austenite-to-ferrite phase transformation is found to initiate the vanadium carbide precipitation. Larger and fewer precipitates are detected at 700 than at 650 °C in all three steels, and a larger number density of precipitates is detected in the steel with higher concentrations of vanadium and carbon. After 10 h of annealing, the precipitated phase does not reach the equilibrium fraction as calculated by ThermoCalc. The external magnetic field applied during the experiments, necessary for the SANS measurements, causes a delay in the onset and time evolution of the austenite-to-ferrite phase transformation and consequently on the precipitation kinetics