scholarly journals Kinship effects in quasi-social parasitoids II: co-foundress relatedness and host dangerousness interactively affect host exploitation

2020 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Khadar Abdi ◽  
Ian C W Hardy ◽  
Costanza Jucker ◽  
Daniela Lupi
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Host Size ◽  
Prior Work ◽  
Brood Production ◽  
Selection For ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Host Exploitation

Abstract Sclerodermus brevicornis is a parasitoid that exhibits cooperative multi-foundress brood production. Prior work showed that the time lag to paralysis of small-sized hosts is shorter when co-foundress relatedness is higher and predicted that the greater risks and greater benefits of attacking larger hosts would combine with co-foundress relatedness to determine the limits to the size of a host that a female is selected to attack as a public good. It was also predicted that the time to host attack would be affected by an interaction between host size and relatedness. Here, we show empirically that both host size and kinship affect S. brevicornis reproduction and that they interact to influence the timing of host attack. We also find effects of co-foundress relatedness after hosts have been suppressed successfully. A public goods model using parameters estimated for S. brevicornis again suggests that selection for individual foundresses to attack and, if successful, to share hosts will be dependent on both the size of the host and the relatedness of the foundresses to any co-foundresses present. Females will not be selected to bear the individual cost of a public good when hosts are large and dangerous or when their relatedness to the co-foundress is low. We conclude that although reproductive behaviours exhibited by Sclerodermus females can be cooperative, they are unlikely to be exhibited without reference to kinship or to the risks involved in attempting to suppress and share large and dangerous hosts.

scholarly journals A public goods model of outcomes from online knowledge sharing mediated by mental model processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald E. Rice ◽  
Marni Heinz ◽  
Ward van Zoonen
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Learning Potential ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Individual

Purpose This study aims to take a public goods approach to understand relationships between collecting and contributing knowledge to an online knowledge sharing portal (KSP), mental model processing and outcomes at the individual and collective levels. Design/methodology/approach This study reports on a survey (N = 602) among tax professionals, examining the perceived individual and collective benefits and costs associated with collecting and contributing knowledge. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. Findings Collecting and contributing knowledge led to considerable mental model processing of the knowledge. That in turn significantly influenced (primarily) individual and (some) collective costs and benefits. Results varied by the kinds of knowledge sharing. Whether directly from knowledge sharing, or mediated through mental modeling, the perceived costs and benefits may be internalized as an individual good rather than being interpreted at the collective level as a public good. Research limitations/implications The study is situated in the early stages of a wiki-type online KSP. A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users and contributors, heightening perceptions of the public goods dimension of a KSP. Practical implications A focus on the learning potential of the system could serve to draw in new users, and thus the number of subsequent contributors, heightening perceptions of the collective, public goods dimension of a KSP. Originality/value This study explores how knowledge sharing and mental model processing are directly and indirectly associated with individual and collective costs and benefits. As online knowledge sharing is both an individual and public good, costs and benefits must be considered from both perspectives.

scholarly journals Walk the Talk? The Effect of Voting and Excludability in Public Goods Experiments

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Czap ◽  
Natalia V. Czap ◽  
Esmail Bonakdarian
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Public Project ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Other Regarding

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of voting and excludability on individual contributions to group projects. We conducted two experiments on excludable and nonexcludable public goods, which provided several important results. First, contrary to our expectations, subjects are generally contributing more to the non-excludable compared to the excludable public good. Second, participating in a vote to choose a public project per se makes no difference in contributions. However, if the project that the individual voted for also gets selected by the group, they contribute significantly more to that project. Third, empathy and locus of control are important driving forces of participation in common projects. Our results have implications on the procedural design of obtaining funding for public projects. First, the public should get involved and have a say in the determination of which project should be realized. Second, it might well pay off to attempt to develop a consensus among the population and obtain near unanimous votes, because in our experiment, subjects discriminate between the project they voted for and the project chosen by the majority. Third, the policy proposers should stress the other-regarding interest of the public good rather than just pecuniary incentives.

scholarly journals Selection of horizontal gene transfer through public good production

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Dimitriu ◽  
Dusan Misevic ◽  
Julien Benard Capelle ◽  
Ariel B Lindner ◽  
Sam P Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Horizontal Transfer ◽  
Good Genes ◽  
Selective Pressures ◽  
Good Production ◽  
Genes Encoding ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Benefits And Costs ◽  
Selection Of

AbstractIn bacteria, cooperative genes encoding public good molecules are preferentially located on mobile genetic elements (MGEs), and horizontal transfer of MGEs favours the maintenance of public good cooperation. The rate of horizontal transfer itself can evolve in response to selective pressures acting on both MGEs and bacterial hosts: benefits and costs of infectious spread, but also indirect effects of MGE genes to the host. We show here that carriage of public good genes on MGEs can generate another indirect selection for MGE transfer. Transfer increases public good production and, when relatedness is sufficiently high, public goods benefit preferentially genotypes with high transfer ability. Both our simulations and experiments indicate that transfer is not required to occur among kin, provided that public goods still benefit kin. Public good gene mobility thus aligns the interests of chromosomes and MGEs concerning transfer, promoting gene exchange among bacteria.

Public schools, public goods, and public work

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Knight Abowitz ◽  
Sarah M. Stitzlein
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Shared Governance ◽  
Good Education ◽  
Public Work ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Individual Choices

When determining whether public schools constitute a public good, it’s important to understand what we mean by a public good. An economic definition, common among school choice advocates, focuses on the individual benefits of getting a good education. Within such a definition, selecting a school may be compared to selecting a box of cereal at the supermarket. Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Sarah M. Stitzlein argue for a more civic-minded vision that focuses on how public schools both promote and benefit from a vision of shared liberties, shared governance, and a shared future. This vision requires looking beyond individual choices to highlight the many practices within schools that bear considerable social and political benefits.

scholarly journals Adaptation to public goods cheats in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1859) ◽  
pp. 20171089 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhán O'Brien ◽  
Adela M. Luján ◽  
Steve Paterson ◽  
Michael A. Cant ◽  
Angus Buckling
Keyword(s):  
Pseudomonas Aeruginosa ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Iron Acquisition ◽  
Siderophore Production ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Evolutionary Response ◽  
Selection For

Cooperation in nature is ubiquitous, but is susceptible to social cheats who pay little or no cost of cooperation yet reap the benefits. The effect such cheats have on reducing population productivity suggests that there is selection for cooperators to mitigate the adverse effects of cheats. While mechanisms have been elucidated for scenarios involving a direct association between producer and cooperative product, it is less clear how cooperators may suppress cheating in an anonymous public goods scenario, where cheats cannot be directly identified. Here, we investigate the real-time evolutionary response of cooperators to cheats when cooperation is mediated by a diffusible public good: the production of iron-scavenging siderophores by Pseudomonas aeruginosa . We find that siderophore producers evolved in the presence of a high frequency of non-producing cheats were fitter in the presence of cheats, at no obvious cost to population productivity. A novel morphotype independently evolved and reached higher frequencies in cheat-adapted versus control populations, exhibiting reduced siderophore production but increased production of pyocyanin—an extracellular toxin that can also increase the availability of soluble iron. This suggests that cooperators may have mitigated the negative effects of cheats by downregulating siderophore production and upregulating an alternative iron-acquisition public good. More generally, the study emphasizes that cooperating organisms can rapidly adapt to the presence of anonymous cheats without necessarily incurring fitness costs in the environment they evolve in.

On the Essence and Tipology of International Public Goods

2005 ◽  
pp. 131-141
Author(s):  
V. Mortikov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
Club Goods ◽  
Basic Properties ◽  
International Public Goods ◽  
Regional Public Goods ◽  
Joint Products

The basic properties of international public goods are analyzed in the paper. Special attention is paid to the typology of international public goods: pure and impure, excludable and nonexcludable, club goods, regional public goods, joint products. The author argues that social construction of international public good depends on many factors, for example, government economic policy. Aggregation technologies in the supply of global public goods are examined.

scholarly journals Bringing tax avoiders to light: moral framing and shaming in a public goods experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Stefanos A. Tsikas
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Free Riders ◽  
Social Sanctions ◽  
Moral Framing ◽  
Public Goods Experiment

Abstract With a linear public goods game played in six different variants, this article studies two channels that might moderate social dilemmas and increase cooperation without using pecuniary incentives: moral framing and shaming. We find that cooperation is increased when noncontributing to a public good is framed as morally debatable and socially harmful tax avoidance, while the mere description of a tax context has no effect. However, without social sanctions in place, cooperation quickly deteriorates due to social contagion. We find ‘shaming’ free-riders by disclosing their misdemeanor to act as a strong social sanction, irrespective of the context in which it is applied. Moralizing tax avoidance significantly reinforces shaming, compared with a simple tax context.

Ethnic trust, minority status, and public goods in post-conflict societies

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332098421
Author(s):  
Sam Whitt
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Intergroup Contact ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Minority Status ◽  
The Public ◽  
Attitudes And Behaviors ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
History Of

This study considers how ethnic trust and minority status can impact the ability of ethnic groups to pursue cooperative public goods, focusing on groups with a history of conflict and lingering hostility. A public good experiment between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in postwar Kosovo reveals that subjects contribute far more to a mutually beneficial public good when they are part of an experimentally induced coethnic majority. However, when in the minority, subjects not only underinvest, but many actively divest entirely, privatizing the public good. Majority/minority status also has wide-ranging implications for how individuals relate to real-world public goods and the institutions of government that provide them. Compared to majority Albanians, survey data indicate how minority Serbs in Kosovo express greater safety and security concerns, feel more politically, socially, and economically excluded, are more dissatisfied with civil liberties and human rights protections, and are less likely to participate politically or pay taxes to support public goods. Conflict-related victimization and distrust of out-groups are strong predictors of these minority group attitudes and behaviors. This suggests a mechanism for how conflict amplifies out-group distrust, increasing parochial bias in public good commitments, especially among minorities who are wary of exploitation at the hands of an out-group majority. To restore trust, this study finds that institutional trust and intergroup contact are important to bridging ethnic divides that inhibit public good cooperation.

A Model of Inequality Aversion and Private Provision of Public Goods

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hide-Fumi Yokoo
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Theoretical Foundation ◽  
Inequality Aversion ◽  
Public Good Provision ◽  
Marginal Rate ◽  
Private Provision ◽  
Marginal Rate Of Substitution ◽  
Good Provision ◽  
Corner Solutions

AbstractI develop a model of inequality aversion and public goods that allows the marginal rate of substitution to be variable. As a theoretical foundation, utility function of the standard public goods model is nested in the Fehr-Schmidt model. An individual’s contribution function for a public good is derived by solving the problem of kinky preference and examining both interior and corner solutions. Results show that the derived contribution function is not monotonic with respect to the other individual’s provision. Thus, the model can be used to explain empirical evidence for the effect of social comparison on public-good provision.

scholarly journals Avoiding or restricting defectors in public goods games?

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (103) ◽  
pp. 20141203 ◽  
Author(s):  
The Anh Han ◽  
Luís Moniz Pereira ◽  
Tom Lenaerts
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Full Agreement ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
The Common ◽  
Strategic Solution

When creating a public good, strategies or mechanisms are required to handle defectors. We first show mathematically and numerically that prior agreements with posterior compensations provide a strategic solution that leads to substantial levels of cooperation in the context of public goods games, results that are corroborated by available experimental data. Notwithstanding this success, one cannot, as with other approaches, fully exclude the presence of defectors, raising the question of how they can be dealt with to avoid the demise of the common good. We show that both avoiding creation of the common good, whenever full agreement is not reached, and limiting the benefit that disagreeing defectors can acquire, using costly restriction mechanisms, are relevant choices. Nonetheless, restriction mechanisms are found the more favourable, especially in larger group interactions. Given decreasing restriction costs, introducing restraining measures to cope with public goods free-riding issues is the ultimate advantageous solution for all participants, rather than avoiding its creation.

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