Public cooperation statements

Communication is a well-known tool to promote cooperation and pro-social behavior. In this study, we examine whether minimal communication in form of public consent with a pre-defined cooperation statement is sufficient to strengthen cooperation in groups. Within the controlled environment of a laboratory experiment, we identify ways by which non-enforceable cooperation statements are associated with higher levels of cooperation in a public good setting. At first, the statement triggers selection; socially oriented individuals are more likely to make the cooperation statement. In addition, we can show that a behavioral change takes place once the statement is made. This change can be attributed to commitment arising from the pledge and to increased coordination between the interaction partners. Depending on the institutional context, these drivers can vary in strength. Comparing compulsory and voluntary cooperation statements, we find that both are effective in motivating higher contributions to the public good.

Tempting goods, self-control fatigue, and time preference in consumer dynamics

We propose a dynamic model of consumer behavior under limited self-control, emphasizing the fatiguing nature of self-regulation. The temptation theory is extended in a two-good setting with tempting and non-tempting goods, where self-regulation in moderating tempting good consumption depreciates mental capital (willpower). The resulting non-homothetic feature of consumer preferences helps describe self-regulatory behavior in such an empirically relevant way that it depends on the nature of the tempting good (luxury or inferior) and on consumer wealth. First, richer consumers are more self-indulgent and impatient in consuming tempting luxuries, whereas less so in consuming tempting inferiors: impatience is marginally increasing in wealth for jewels whereas decreasing for junk foods. Second, self-control fatigue weakens implied patience for tempting good consumption. Third, upon a stressful shock, with the resulting increasing scarcity of willpower, self-indulgence and impatience for tempting good consumption increase over time. Fourth, naive consumers, unaware of the willpower constraint, display weaker self-control in the long run than sophisticated consumers in the same wealth class would do.

Conclusion

This chapter points out the acceleration of globalization that had a major impact on making comparative literature a good setting to explore interests and concerns from the conflictual transformation of the world's economic and cultural landscape. It also discusses the increase in international communication and travel fostered by the internet and deregulated airfares that enables scholars to gather and critique neoliberalism. The chapter explains how postcolonial writing is thought and changed differently within world literature and analyzes the interactions between postcolonial and global or world literary studies. It looks into comparative studies that involve novel intersections of perspectives that can be seen in forward-looking work often pursued by comparatists. It also cites Jacob Edmond's “A Common Strangeness,” in which he examines globalization through case studies in experimental Chinese, Russian, and American poetry.

“Swirl Babies”

This chapter shifts attention from the church’s outreach efforts to another dimension of its internal workings—how it handles romantic relationships among church members. In particular, tensions have arisen over interracial romantic relationships. Many in the congregation perceive the pastoral staff as discouraging such relationships, if not always explicitly. One result is a regular meeting of couples involved in these relationships in settings outside the church, and hiding their relationships from other church members and the staff. The ambivalence about interracial romance becomes a good setting in which to understand the congregation’s overall ambivalence about dealing with issues of race and racial inequality forthrightly.

A New World

The introduction gives an outline of the book’s argument for socialism as a form of globalization and its overall scholarly contribution. It explains the typical chronology of Stalinism, and why this book adopts a broader lens. It also captures the importance of political breaks in socialism — like the Sino-Soviet break in the 1960s — but without neglecting continuities and forms of transnational exchange. Offering contextual background, the introduction explains why Albania is a good setting for a study of this scope. Finally, the introduction provides a roadmap to the book.

National Design and the Broadcasting of Power

This chapter examines the effect of national design on African politics by focusing on the ramifications of the size and shape of nations. It argues that the particular political challenges that African countries face in broadcasting power, combined with the understanding of sovereignty that has developed, cause the calculations regarding national design to be radically different from the conventional wisdom that has developed based on the European experience. In particular, unlike Europe, African conditions privilege nations that are relatively small. Fortunately, the enormous variation in the size of countries across the continent makes Africa a particularly good setting to understand the implications of national design on politics.

Properties of the Combinatorial Clock Auction

The combinatorial clock auction has become popular for large-scale spectrum awards and other uses, replacing more traditional ascending or clock auctions. We describe some surprising properties of the auction, including a wide range of ex post equilibria with demand expansion, demand reduction, and predation. Our results obtain in a standard homogeneous good setting where bidders have well-behaved linear demand curves, and suggest some practical difficulties with dynamic implementations of the Vickrey auction. (JEL D44, D47, H82, L13)

Determinants of IFRS Compliance by Canadian Companies

The objective of this paper is to provide evidence on IFRS compliance by Canadian companies. The Canadian Accounting Standards Board (AcSB) required the use of IFRS for publicly accountable enterprises (other than pension plans) beginning on January 1, 2011. Specifically, the authors analyze the determinants of IFRS disclosure compliance for these companies. Canada provides a good setting for their research, because they measure the compliance in the first year of IFRS adoption when some of the companies are still allowed to use U.S. GAAP or local GAAP. They measure compliance by using an updated version of the instrument used in Hodgdon et al. (2009). The authors' results show that firm size, foreign sales proportion, and U.S. listing are positively associated with the IFRS compliance while the leverage ratio is negatively associated with the IFRS compliance of the sample firms. These results confirm the premise that firms with better information environment and better monitoring tend to comply well with the newly adopted accounting information.