Competition, Reputation and Cheating

Under repeated market interaction, reputation and competition may drive out of the market those firms that do not comply with their quality promises. One may thus presume that competitive pressure improves average market quality. This paper shows that the opposite may be true in an endogenous entry, repeated interaction, linear demand oligopoly model, in which introductory prices may be used as quality signals. Cheating firms may enter the market, fool even rational consumers, and exit the market when discovered, implying a failure of the basic reputation mechanism and an increasing time path of prices. Markets for closer substitutes tend to have a lower initial average quality and less trusting consumers, whereas the number of competitors has no clear relationship with average quality.

Bowling Alone, Drinking Together

Alcohol consumption may be associated to a rich social life, but its abuse might be related to a poor social life. This paper investigates whether alcohol consumption is a socially enjoyed good (a complement of social relations) or a substitute for social relations. In particular, it explores whether the answer changes between use and abuse, beer, wine and spirits, youth and adults, controlling or not for family influence and unobserved heterogeneity, and for various forms of social relations. Controlling for a great number of covariates and allowing for non linear and identity-specific family interaction effects, we find that alcohol consumption is a socially enjoyed good.Social relations, Social interaction, Family, Alcohol consumption, Binge drinking

Competition, Reputation and Compliance

This paper displays a linear demand oligopoly model, in which firms endogenously decide whether to enter the market and whether to specialize on high or low quality products, and then repeatedly interact to sell experience goods. It shows that the intuition that low and rising prices grant compliance with quality promises extends to this setting, provided that high quality is sufficiently important to buyers

”Thou shalt not covet ...”: Prohibitions, Temptation and Moral Values

We propose a theory studying temptation in presence of both externally and internally sanctioned prohibitions. Moral values that (internally) sanction prohibited actions and their desire may increase utility by reducing self-control costs, thereby serving as partial commitment devices. We apply the model to crime and study the conditions under which agents would optimally adhere to moral values of honesty. Incentives to be moral are non- monotonic in the crime premium. Larger external punishments increase temptation and demand for morality, so that external and internal sanctions are complements. The model helps rationalizing stylized facts that proved difficult to explain with available theories.Prohibitions, Temptation, Self-Control, Moral Values, Crime

Participation, growth and social poverty: social capital in a homogeneous society

We introduce social capital accumulation into a neoclassical model, showing how it differs from physical and human capital accumulation. We take the view that social capital is crucial to the enjoyment of socially provided goods and that it is mainly accumulated by means of participation to social activities. Under-investment in social capital maylead a growing economy to fall into a social poverty trap. We argue that this risk is particularly relevant for advanced societies.Social capital; self-protection choices; social poverty traps

Economic Growth and Social Poverty: The Evolution of Social Participation

We develop an evolutionary model of growth in which agents choose how to allocate their time between private and social activities. We argue that a shift from social to private activities may foster market-based growth, but also generate social poverty. Within a formal framework that merges a game theoretic analysis of the evolution of social participation with a model of dynamic accumulation of its effects on social environment (i.e., of social capital accumulation), we show that growth and well-being may evolve in opposite directions (a plausible outcome for advanced and affluent societies).Time Allocation, Social Capital, Relational Goods

Social capital accumulation and the evolution of social partecipation

We study the co-evolution of social participation and social capital accumulation, taking the view that the former contributes to the latter, and both contribute to the enjoyment of relational goods Within this framework, we show that a process of substitution of private for social activities (observable in some advanced, affluent economies), might be self-reinforcing and lead to a Pareto-dominated steady state. We find some scope for policy intervention, but we also acknowledge its difficulty.Social Capita; Well-being; Time Allocation

O problema do conhecimento de entes contingentes em Aristóteles e Duns Scotus

This Monograph aims to present the question about the notion of contingency in Aristotle and John Duns Scotus. For this, the first chapter presents Aristotle‟s notion of episteme. From the works Posterior Analytics and Physics II, we highlight the two key aspects that constitute episteme, namely: causality and necessity. We emphasize the distinction proposed by Aristotle between necessary and contingent. For this, the analysis takes Metaphysics V, 5, according to which there are five senses of “necessary”. For the concept of contingent, the object of analysis is Prior Analytics, I, 13. The quarrel of future contingents from On Interpretation 9 is also presented, trying to prove why Aristotle defends a form of determinism. In the second chapter, we present the main aspects of Scotus‟s concept of metaphysics. It shows the reason “being” is said the first object of the human intellect, and the need for its univocity. We proceed to the notion of transcendent and its four classes, namely: being, the convertible attributes, the disjunctives attributes and pure perfections. We pay particular attention to the disjunction finite-infinite. The third chapter introduces the notion of contingency by Scotus. For this, synchronic contingency is distinguished from diachronic contingency and the notion of logical possibility is highlighted. The role of the will for the defense of contingency in the world is emphasized, along with the reasons why Duns Scotus opposes Aristotelian determinism. Finally, we compare the notion of contingent and of episteme by Aristotle and the notion of contingent and of scientia proposed by Duns Scotus, by showing that Scotus‟s theory can better explain the knowledge of contingent beings defending a form of indeterminEste trabalho de conclusão de curso tem por objetivo apresentar a problemática da noção de contingência em Aristóteles e em João Duns Scotus. Para tanto, no primeiro capítulo, apresenta-se a noção de episteme na filosofia de Aristóteles. A partir das obras Segundos Analíticos e Física II, busca-se evidenciar os dois traços fundamentais que constituem a episteme, a saber: causalidade e necessidade. Ressalta-se a distinção proposta por Aristóteles entre necessário e contingente. Para isso, a análise detém-se no livro V, 5, da obra Metafísica, no qual Aristóteles apresenta cinco sentidos para necessário. Para o conceito de contingente, o objeto de análise é a obra Primeiros Analíticos, I, 13. Apresenta-se ainda a noção de futuros contingentes a partir da obra Da Interpretação 9, buscando evidenciar porque Aristóteles defende um determinismo. Já no segundo capítulo, apresentam-se aspectos da metafísica de Scotus. Mostra-se o motivo pelo qual o conceito „ente‟ é dito o objeto primeiro do intelecto humano, bem como a necessidade de sua univocidade. Avança-se à noção de transcendente, e apresentam-se as quatro classes desta noção, a saber: o ente, os atributos conversíveis, os atributos disjuntos e as perfeições puras. Dedica-se especial atenção aos atributos disjuntivos finito e infinito. Já o terceiro capítulo apresenta a noção de contingência em Scotus. Para tanto, distingue-se contingência sincrônica de contingência diacrônica e avança-se para a noção de possibilidade lógica. Enfatiza-se o papel da vontade para a defesa da contingência no mundo, e o motivo pelo qual Duns Scotus se opõe ao determinismo aristotélico. Por fim, estabelece-se um paralelo entre a noção de contingente e de episteme pensadas por Aristóteles, e a noção de contingente e scientia pensadas por Duns Scotus, mostrando por que a teoria de Scotus consegue melhor explicar o conhecimento de entes contingentes através da defesa de um indeterminismo

Social Closure, Surnames and Crime

This paper studies the effect of social closure on crime and tax evasion rates using disaggregated data for Italian municipalities. It measures the degree of social openness of a community by the diversity of its surname distribution, which reflects the history of migration and inbreeding. It shows that, all else equal, communities with a history of social closure have lower crime rates and higher tax evasion rates than more open communities. The effect of social closure is likely to be causal, it is relevant in magnitude, statistically significant, and robust to changes in the set of included controls, in the specific measures of dependent and independent variables, in the specification of the regression equation, and in the possible sample splits. Our findings are consistent with the idea that social closure strengthens social sancions and social control, thus leading to more cooperative outcomes in local interactions, but it reduces cooperation on a larger scale