807 research outputs found
Working for a Good Cause
A rich literature in public administration has shown that public sector employees have stronger altruistic motivations than private sector employees. Recent economic theories stress the importance of mission preferences, and predict that altruistic people sort into the public sector when they subscribe to its mission. This paper uses data from a representative survey among more than 30.000 employees from 50 countries to test this prediction. Our results show that only those individuals who are willing to contribute to the welfare of others and, in addition, feel that by working in the public sector they contribute to a good cause are significantly more likely to work in the public sector. Our results are most pronounced for highly educated employees
Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany
We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker's altruism, and increases or decreases with a worker's laziness depending on his altruism. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we find that public sector employees are significantly more altruistic and lazy than observationally equivalent private sector employees. A series of robustness checks show that these patterns are stronger among higher educated workers; that the sorting of altruistic people to the public sector takes place only within the caring industries; and that the difference in altruism is already present at the start of people's career, while the difference in laziness is only present for employees with sufficiently long work experience
The Association between Urban Form and Ischemic Heart Disease: Evidence from Brisbane, Australia
We measured the association between urban form and hospitalisation rates for Ischemic Heart Disease (IHD), stratified by age and sex, and controlling for ethnicity, socio economic status, proximity to hospital and neighbourhood walk ability. This was a retrospective cohort study of the proportion of people within the Brisbane area of Australia who were hospitalised between 2006 to 2011 with a primary diagnosis of IHD. There were strong spatial patterns in the incidence of IHD. The importance of predictor variables differed by sex and age. Urban form was generally not a strong predictor. This study suggests no strong relationship was identified between urban form factors and ischemic heart disease using this research approach
Socially Useless Jobs
Hervorming Sociale Regelgevin
Robust creation of atomic W state in a cavity by adiabatic passage
We propose two robust schemes to generate controllable (deterministic) atomic
W-states of three three-level atoms interacting with an optical cavity and a
laser beam. Losses due to atomic spontaneous emissions and to cavity decay are
efficiently suppressed by employing adiabatic passage technique and
appropriately designed atom-field couplings. In these schemes the three atoms
traverse the cavity-mode and the laser beam and become entangled in the free
space outside the cavity.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Optics Communication
Investigation of continuous-time quantum walk by using Krylov subspace-Lanczos algorithm
In papers\cite{js,jsa}, the amplitudes of continuous-time quantum walk on
graphs possessing quantum decomposition (QD graphs) have been calculated by a
new method based on spectral distribution associated to their adjacency matrix.
Here in this paper, it is shown that the continuous-time quantum walk on any
arbitrary graph can be investigated by spectral distribution method, simply by
using Krylov subspace-Lanczos algorithm to generate orthonormal bases of
Hilbert space of quantum walk isomorphic to orthogonal polynomials. Also new
type of graphs possessing generalized quantum decomposition have been
introduced, where this is achieved simply by relaxing some of the constrains
imposed on QD graphs and it is shown that both in QD and GQD graphs, the unit
vectors of strata are identical with the orthonormal basis produced by Lanczos
algorithm. Moreover, it is shown that probability amplitude of observing walk
at a given vertex is proportional to its coefficient in the corresponding unit
vector of its stratum, and it can be written in terms of the amplitude of its
stratum. Finally the capability of Lanczos-based algorithm for evaluation of
walk on arbitrary graphs (GQD or non-QD types), has been tested by calculating
the probability amplitudes of quantum walk on some interesting finite
(infinite) graph of GQD type and finite (infinite) path graph of non-GQD type,
where the asymptotic behavior of the probability amplitudes at infinite limit
of number of vertices, are in agreement with those of central limit theorem of
Ref.\cite{nko}.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figure
Employee recognition and performance: A field experiment
This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received recognition after two hours of work. We find that recognition increases subsequent performance substantially, and particularly so when recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Remarkably, workers who did not receive recognition are mainly responsible for this performance increase. This result is consistent with workers having a preference for conformity
Employee recognition and performance: A field experiment
This paper reports the results from a controlled field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of public recognition on employee performance. We hired more than 300 employees to work on a three-hour data-entry task. In a random sample of work groups, workers unexpectedly received recognition after two hours of work. We find that recognition increases subsequent performance substantially, and particularly so when recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Remarkably, workers who did not receive recognition are mainly responsible for this performance increase. This result is consistent with workers having a preference for conformity
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