(Un)Trustworthy Pledges and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Pledges feature in international climate cooperation since the 2015 Paris Agreement. We explore how differences in pledgers' trustworthiness affect outcomes in a social dilemma that parallels climate change. In an online experiment, two participants interact with a randomly matched third player in a repeat maintenance game with a pledge stage. Treatments vary whether participants are matched with a player that is more or less trustworthy as revealed by behavior in a promise-keeping game; and whether they observe that trustworthiness. We find that participants knowingly matched with more trustworthy players cooperate more than participants matched with less trustworthy players (knowingly or unknowingly), but also more than participants unknowingly matched with more trustworthy players. In contrast, participants knowingly matched with less trustworthy players do not cooperate less than participants who are unknowingly so. Our findings suggest that the use of pledges, as per the Paris Agreement, can leverage the power of trustworthiness to enhance cooperation

Competitive vs. Random Audit Mechanisms in Environmental Regulation: Emissions, Self-Reporting, and the Role of Peer Information

In a simplifying analytical framework with endogenous levels of actual and self-reported emissions, we consolidate the existing literature into three main hypotheses about the relative merits, for a resource-constrained regulator, of random (RAM) and competitive (CAM) audit mechanisms in the presence or absence of peer information about actual emissions. Testing the three hypotheses in a quasi-laboratory experiment (N = 131), we find supportive evidence that CAM always induce more truthful reporting than RAM. Moreover, we provide the empirical validation of the theoretical prediction that CAM can succeed in aligning actual emissions more closely with the social optimum in the presence of peer information when RAM cannot. Behavioral mechanisms prevent reaching the first-best outcome

Strategic Ignorance and Perceived Control

Information can trigger unpleasant emotions. As a result, individuals might be tempted to willfully ignore it. We experimentally investigate whether increasing perceived control can mitigate strategic ignorance. Participants from India were presented with a choice to receive information about the health risk associated with air pollution and later asked to recall it. We find that perceived control leads to a substantial improvement in information retention. Moreover, perceived control mostly benefits optimists, who show both a reduction in information avoidance and an increase in information retention. This latter result is confirmed with a US sample. A theoretical framework rationalizes these findings

How to Organize Monitoring and Punishment: Experimental Evidence

Punishment institutions for curtailing free-riding in social dilemmas rely on information about individuals’ behavior collected through monitoring. We contribute to the experimental study of cooperation-enhancing institutions by examining how cooperation and efficiency in a social dilemma change in response to varying how monitoring and punishment are jointly organized. Specifically, we evaluate - against a no-monitoring baseline - combinations of two imperfect monitoring regimes (cen-tralized vs. decentralized) and three punishment regimes (self- vs. peer- vs. del-egated punishment) in a repeated public goods game. As hypothesized, we find that delegated punishment outperforms other punishment regimes, irrespective of the monitoring regime, both in terms of cooperation and efficiency. Monitoring, both centralized and decentralized, cannot raise cooperation relative to the baseline unless accompanied by a credible punishment. When combined with a punishment institution, both monitoring regime outperforms the baseline

Dipole Moment Effect on the Electrochemical Desorption of Self-Assembled Monolayers of 310-Helicogenic Peptides on Gold

AbstractThe front cover artwork is provided by Pierangelo Gobbo and Flavio Maran, University of Padova (Italy). The image highlights how the orientation of the dipole moment associated with helical peptides affects the electrodesorption potential of the corresponding self‐assembled monolayers. Read the full text of the Article at 10.1002/celc.201600573

Uomini e no: un'analisi narrativa della costruzione dell'identità di genere nella organizzazione sindacale

La mia tesi affronta il tema della costruzione dell'identità di genere all'interno di un contesto organizzativo a tradizionale dominanza maschile quale il sindacato. Il frame teorico di riferimento è quello degli studi organizzativi, in particolare i contributi che hanno guardato al genere come pratica materiale, sociale e discorsiva, così come al costrutto di maschilità egemone. La ricerca si basa sull'analisi narrativa dei materiali documentali e dei testi d'intervista a uomini e donne membri di una particolare organizzazione sindacale. Dall'analisi emerge il cambiamento in corso nella pratica sindacale , dalla centralità della fabbrica alle nuove identità lavorative, con le relative implicazioni di genere. L'analisi si concentra sul dibattito interno all'organizzazione sui temi delle quote e dell'equilibrio tra dimensione pubblica e privata, mettendo in evidenza le possibilità di mantenere o sfidare il modello di maschilità egemone nell'organizzazione

Strategic Ignorance and Perceived Control

Information can trigger unpleasant emotions. As a result, individuals might be tempted to strategically ignore it. We experimentally investigate whether increasing perceived control can mitigate strategic ignorance. Participants from India were presented with a choice to receive information about the health risk associated with air pollution and were later asked to recall it. Perceived control leads to a substantial improvement in information recall. We find that optimists react most to perceived control, both with a reduction in information avoidance and an increase in information recall. This latter result is supported by a US sample. A theoretical framework rationalizes our findings

Provable better quasi orders

It has recently been shown that fairly strong axiom systems such as $\mathsf{ACA}_0$ cannot prove that the antichain with three elements is a better quasi order ($\mathsf{bqo}$). In the present paper, we give a complete characterization of the finite partial orders that are provably $\mathsf{bqo}$ in such axiom systems. The result will also be extended to infinite orders. As an application, we derive that a version of the minimal bad array lemma is weak over $\mathsf{ACA_0}$. In sharp contrast, a recent result shows that the same version is equivalent to $\Pi^1_2$-comprehension over the stronger base theory $\mathsf{ATR}_0$

Absolute vs. relative success: Why overconfidence is an inefficient equilibrium

Overconfidence is one of the most ubiquitous biases in the social sciences, but the evidence regarding its overall costs and benefits is mixed. To test the possibility that overconfidence might yield important relative benefits that offset its absolute costs, we conducted an experiment (N=298 university students) in which pairs of participants bargain over the unequal allocation of a prize that was earned via a joint effort. We manipulated confidence using a binary noisy signal to investigate the causal effect of negotiators’ beliefs about their relative contribution on the outcome of the negotiation. Our results provide evidence that high levels of confidence lead to relative benefits (how much one earns compared to one’s partner) but absolute costs (how much money one receives overall). These results suggest that overconfidence creates an inefficient equilibrium whereby overconfident negotiators benefit over their partners even as they bring about joint losses