Rational Choice with Deontic Constraints

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heath
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Household Tasks ◽  
Household Organization ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Sticking Point

Anyone who has ever lived with roommates understands the Hobbesian state of nature implicitly. People sharing accommodations quickly discover that buying groceries, doing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and a thousand other household tasks, are all prisoner's dilemmas waiting to happen. For instance, if food is purchased communally, it gives everyone an incentive to overconsume (because the majority of the cost of anything anyone eats is borne by the others). Individuals also have an incentive to buy expensive items that the others are unlikely to want. As a result, everyone's food bill will be higher than it would be if everyone did their own shopping. Things are not much better when it comes to other aspects of household organization. Cleaning is a common sticking point. Once there are a certain number of people living in a house, cleanliness becomes a quasi-public good. If everyone ‘pitched in’ to clean up, then everyone would be happier. But there is a free-rider incentive—before cleaning, it's best to wait around a bit to see if someone else will do it. As a result, the dishes will stack up in the sink, the carpet will get grungy, and so on.

scholarly journals Sharing the Cost of a Public Good without Subsidies

2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARC FLEURBAEY ◽  
YVES SPRUMONT
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
The Cost

scholarly journals Zabrnięcie w rewolucję: marksizm analityczny, racjonalność i działanie zbiorowe

1970 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 93-117
Author(s):  
Christopher Bertram ◽  
Alan Carling
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Recurrent Process ◽  
Collective Engagement ◽  
Micro Foundations ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

Right-wing critics have long used the theory of rational choice to pour scorn on the Marxist theory of revolution, because, they say, free-rider considerations will deter any rational self-interested worker from engaging in revolutionary action. This contention poses an especial problem for Analytical Marxists, who also utilise rational choice models to understand the micro-foundations of collective action. It turns out, however, that if the worker’s decision to join a collective action is conceived more realistically, not as a once-for-all commitment, but as a recurrent process affected continuously by the actions of others, then a much richer repertoire of outcomes begins to appear within the theory – matching those found in history itself. This paper develops simple models of collective action that display this broader range of possibilities. These include convergence to a stable level of collective engagement, oscillation over time between different levels of engagement, and truly chaotic behaviour, in which levels of engagement are never repeated.

scholarly journals Metabolic Heat in Microbial Conflict and Cooperation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven A. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Heat Production ◽  
Future Study ◽  
Local Heat ◽  
Local Temperature ◽  
Optimum Temperature ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
Metabolic Heat ◽  
A Cell ◽  
The Cost

Many microbes live in habitats below their optimum temperature. Retention of metabolic heat by aggregation or insulation would boost growth. Generation of excess metabolic heat may also provide benefit. A cell that makes excess metabolic heat pays the cost of production, whereas the benefit may be shared by neighbors within a zone of local heat capture. Metabolic heat as a shareable public good raises interesting questions about conflict and cooperation of heat production and capture. Metabolic heat may also be deployed as a weapon. Species with greater thermotolerance gain by raising local temperature to outcompete less thermotolerant taxa. Metabolic heat may provide defense against bacteriophage attack, by analogy with fever in vertebrates. This article outlines the theory of metabolic heat in microbial conflict and cooperation, presenting several predictions for future study.

scholarly journals Cheater suppression and spite through quorum sensing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander S Moffett ◽  
Peter J Thomas ◽  
Michael Hinczewski ◽  
Andrew W Eckford
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Quorum Sensing ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Bacterial Population ◽  
Extinction Time ◽  
Population Extinction ◽  
Good Production ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Demographic Noise ◽  
The Cost

The evolutionary consequences of quorum sensing in regulating bacterial cooperation are not fully understood. In this study, we reveal unexpected consequences of regulating public good production through quorum sensing on bacterial population dynamics, showing that quorum sensing can be a "spiteful" alternative to unregulated production. We analyze a birth-death model of bacterial population dynamics accounting for public good production and the presence of non-producing cheaters. Our model demonstrates that when demographic noise is a factor, the consequences of controlling public good production according to quorum sensing depend on the cost of public good production and the presence of alternative sources of the fitness benefits provided by public goods. When public good production is inexpensive, quorum sensing is a spiteful alternative to unconditional production, in terms of the mean population extinction time. When costs are higher, quorum sensing becomes a selfish strategy for the producing strain, both stabilizing cooperation and decreasing the risk of population extinction.

Inter–Jurisdictional Cost–Sharing of Public Spending

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-186
Author(s):  
Michele G. Giuranno
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Cost Sharing ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Welfare Gain ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Cost

Abstract This paper deals with the issue of how two geographically separate jurisdictions should share the cost of a centralized and uniformly provided public good. The key assumption is that jurisdictional representatives make decisions by bargaining in die centralised legislature. Results suggest that jurisdictions may reach a mutually beneficial agreement by equalising the net welfare gain produced by the provision of die public good, rather than the public good cost. The model identifies the efficiency and redistributive implications of such an agreement.

The Optimal Provision of Services in National Parks

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
Pure Public Good ◽  
The Future ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Good Provision ◽  
The Cost

Abstract A national park provides recreational opportunities and also provides a pure public good. This paper presents an intergenerational model in which a club good and a pure public good are provided jointly. The focus is on optimality conditions for services provided by park managers. At the margin, the cost of providing the services should be balanced by the benefits of services. Services can directly enhance visitor enjoyment, both immediately and in the future; they can also affect congestion currently and in the future; they can affect the quality of park resources; and they can affect the pure public good provision. The framework developed in this paper suggests what information should be used by the National Park Service when deciding on the level and kind of services to provide.

Experimental Criminology and the Free-Rider Dilemma

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-227
Author(s):  
Johann Koehler ◽  
Tobias Smith
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Actionable Knowledge ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Experimental Criminology

Abstract Experimental criminology promises a public good: when experiments generate findings about criminal justice interventions, everyone benefits from that knowledge. However, experimental criminology also produces a free-rider problem: when experiments test interventions on the units where problems concentrate, only the sample assumes the risk of backfire. This mismatch between who pays for criminological knowledge and who rides on it persists even after traditional critiques of experimental social science are addressed. We draw from medicine and economics to define experimental criminology’s free-rider problem and expose a dilemma. Either we distribute the costs of producing policy-actionable knowledge to the entire beneficiary population or we justify isolating the risk of experimental harm on that class of the population where ethical concerns are most acute.

How to share the cost of a public good?

1975 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Champsaur
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
The Cost

Individual Participation in Collective Racial Violence: A Rational Choice Synthesis

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 1040-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. David Mason
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Decision Calculus ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Individual Participation

Existing rational choice treatments of collective violence have consistently discounted the role of the public goods component of the individual's decision calculus about whether or not to participate in such acts. By assuming free rider effects with respect to the public goods, these theories are unable to account for the initial inception of violence or for the later nonlooting behaviors that constitute aspects of a riot and, indeed, are preconditions for the inception of looting, the only riot behavior for which these theories can offer any explanation. Five dimensions of discrimination are defined in rational choice terms and their elimination (or reduction) is defined as the creation of a public good. I use existing theories of individual contributions to the provision of public goods to demonstrate that free rider effects need not be assumed and that the inception of a riot and later nonlooting riot behaviors can best be explained as individual contributions to the provision of the public goods represented by the elimination of the several forms of discrimination.

The Temper Tantrums of Nations: Why Would Weak Nations Challenge Hegemonic Nations?

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias L. Khalil
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Net Benefit ◽  
Military Conflict ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cost Of War ◽  
The Cost

Abstract In March 2005, riots erupted in South Korea against Japan in reaction to Japan’s claims of sovereignty over some rocky uninhabited islets (0.23 km2). What explains the moral outrage against Japan, the severity of which could have erupted into a military conflict? Such outrage is a puzzle for two reasons. First, the probability that South Korea could defeat Japan is nil, especially since the US-Japan alliance dominates the US-South Korean alliance. Second, even if the probability of defeating Japan was 100%, the net benefit of conflict was apparently negative – given the meager potential reward vis-à-vis the cost of war. This article offers a rational choice model that demonstrates that the moral outrage cannot be explained as a strategic threat. The analysis demonstrates that sociological and evolutionary game explanations are also unconvincing. This calls for an evaluation of how emotions relate to rational choice in international conflicts.

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