The evolution of anti-social rewarding and its countermeasures in public goods games.

Cooperation in joint enterprises can easily break down when self-interests are in conflict with collective benefits, causing a tragedy of the commons. In such social dilemmas, the possibility for contributors to invest in a common pool-rewards fund, which will be shared exclusively among contributors, can be powerful for averting the tragedy, as long as the second-order dilemma (i.e. withdrawing contribution to reward funds) can be overcome (e.g. with second-order sanctions). However, the present paper reveals the vulnerability of such pool-rewarding mechanisms to the presence of reward funds raised by defectors and shared among them (i.e. anti-social rewarding), as it causes a cooperation breakdown, even when second-order sanctions are possible. I demonstrate that escaping this social trap requires the additional condition that coalitions of defectors fare poorly compared with pro-socials, with either (i) better rewarding abilities for the latter or (ii) reward funds that are contingent upon the public good produced beforehand, allowing groups of contributors to invest more in reward funds than groups of defectors. These results suggest that the establishment of cooperation through a collective positive incentive mechanism is highly vulnerable to anti-social rewarding and requires additional countermeasures to act in combination with second-order sanctions.

Jevons et Walras : entre philosophie morale et économie sociale, un jalon dans la compréhension de la décision publique

This PhD dissertation deals with the question of evaluating social welfare and public policy making through the works of William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) and Léon Walras (1834-1910), two economists who lived in the 19th century. These authors, well-known for their analyses on pure economics, were also deeply interested in the social problems of their time and proposed solutions to remedy them. In accordance with utilitarianism, Jevons was convinced that the reforms implemented by public authorities should improve social welfare (viewed as dependant on individual utilities). As for Walras, he defined a justice criterion based on a particular definition of natural law, and the reforms he proposed had the objective of restoring the rights following from this definition. We have drawn two principal conclusions from our work. First, the analyses of Jevons and Walras, who are often considered marginalise, are different not only in pure economics (as suggested by Jaffé in the seventies), but also from the point of view of welfare economics (defined as a science dealing with the evaluation of different social states). Secondly, these authors propose two different ways of justifying social reforms which have similarities with modern theory even though neither Jevons nor Walras are considered pioneers of welfare economics or public economics. Based on these two conclusions, we claim that studying these authors' theories might be of interest for the evaluation of public projects by the economists of today. Not only were their problems similar to ours, but also the original ideas present in their analyses may lead to the refinement of modern methods.Résumé en françaisCette these de doctorat porte sur les manières dont deux économistes du XIXe siècle, William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) et Léon Walras (1834-1910), abordent la question du bien- etre collectif et la prise de décision publique. Connus principalement pour leurs travaux en économie pure, ces auteurs s'intéressent également à la question sociale et proposent des solutions pour y remédier. Jevons, conformément à son adhésion à la tradition utilitariste, estime que les interventions des autorités publiques doivent avoir pour objectif l'amélioration du bien- être collectif. Quant à Walras, il adopte un critère de justice qui relève du « droit naturel » et les propositions sociales qu'il préconise sont justifiées sur la base de leur conformité avec ce dernier. A l'issue du travail effectué dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous avons abouti à deux résultats principaux : (1) Les analyses de Jevons et Walras, deux économistes qui sont souvent considérés comme des « marginalistes » diffèrent fondamentalement non seulement dans leur analyse de l'économie pure, comme Jaffé le soulignait (1976), mais également en termes d'économie du bien-être (comprise comme une science ayant pour objectif l'évaluation des différents états sociaux). (2) Il existe deux voies originales pour justifier les réformes sociales dans les oeuvres de Jevons et Walras qui partagent des similarités importantes avec les théories modernes bien que ces auteurs ne fassent pas partie des jalons généralement retenus de l'histoire de l'économie du bien-être et de l'économie publique. Ces deux résultats nous conduisent à avancer que l'étude des approches de Jevons et de Walras peut contribuer à la formulation de nouvelles solutions à des problèmes rencontrés dans l'évaluation des différentes politiques publiques, car non seulement les préoccupations de ces auteurs était similaires aux nôtres, mais vu les éléments originaux que leurs propositions comportent, elles peuvent permettre de nuancer certaines aspects des méthodes modernes.

Uncertainty, electoral incentives and political myopia

We study the determinants of political myopia in a rational model of electoral accountability where the key elements are informational frictions and uncertainty. We build aframework where political ability is ex-ante unknown and policy choices are not perfectlyobservable. On the one hand, elections improve accountability and allow to keep well-performing incumbents. On the other, politicians invest too little in costly policies withfuture returns in an attempt to signal high ability and increase their reelection probability.Contrary to the conventional wisdom, uncertainty reduces political myopia and may, undersome conditions, increase social welfare. We use the model to study how political rewardscan be set so as to maximise social welfare and the desirability of imposing a one-term limitto governments. The predictions of our theory are consistent with a number of stylised factsand with a new empirical observation documented in this paper: aggregate uncertainty, measured by economic volatility, is associated to better fiscal discipline in a panel of 20 OECDcountries.

The enterprise face to the environmental challenge: straddling the fence between social responsibility and penal responsibility

This contribution aims to analyse how to incur companies' criminal liability when they violate environmental protection globally. In Switzerland, companies' criminal liability has already been provided for to fight against money launder- ing (Article 102 CP). Could a similar liability be incurred, in Switzerland, for companies that infringe environmental protection? This is what our contribution is all about. Since the company is at the heart of our subject, the point is to see to what extent criminal liability could be transposed to cases of violation by companies of the environmental principles promoted by the CSR concept.

A course on collaboration between social workers and general practitioners during their vocational training

The educational programme reported was an experiment in the vocational training scheme of the department of General Practice, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Holland, and is now part of the course. The programme focused on the training in team function (co-operation) given to trainee GPs and social workers. It became clear that both groups during their professional training develop markedly different attitudes and views about patient (client) care. These differences form a fundamental handicap in any discussion about teamwork. During the programme the students were made aware of this divergence of viewpoint and were taught how to handle these resulting handicaps and, if possible, to eliminate them.

What makes one person paranoid and another person anxious? The differential prediction of social anxiety and persecutory ideation in an experimental situation

The study shows that social anxiety and persecutory ideation share many of the same predictive factors. Non-clinical paranoia may be a type of anxious fear. However, perceptual anomalies are a distinct predictor of paranoia. In the context of an individual feeling anxious, the occurrence of odd internal feelings in social situations may lead to delusional ideas through a sense of" things not seeming right". The study illustrates the approach of focusing on experiences such as paranoid thinking rather than diagnoses such as schizophrenia.

Abnormal social behaviors and altered gene expression rates in a mouse model for Potocki-Lupski syndrome.

The Potocki-Lupski syndrome (PTLS) is associated with a microduplication of 17p11.2. Clinical features include multiple congenital and neurobehavioral abnormalities and autistic features. We have generated a PTLS mouse model, Dp(11)17/+, that recapitulates some of the physical and neurobehavioral phenotypes present in patients. Here, we investigated the social behavior and gene expression pattern of this mouse model in a pure C57BL/6-Tyr(c-Brd) genetic background. Dp(11)17/+ male mice displayed normal home-cage behavior but increased anxiety and increased dominant behavior in specific tests. A subtle impairment in the preference for a social target versus an inanimate target and abnormal preference for social novelty (the preference to explore an unfamiliar mouse versus a familiar one) was also observed. Our results indicate that these animals could provide a valuable model to identify the specific gene(s) that confer abnormal social behaviors and that map within this delimited genomic deletion interval. In a first attempt to identify candidate genes and for elucidating the mechanisms of regulation of these important phenotypes, we directly assessed the relative transcription of genes within and around this genomic interval. In this mouse model, we found that candidates genes include not only most of the duplicated genes, but also normal-copy genes that flank the engineered interval; both categories of genes showed altered expression levels in the hippocampus of Dp(11)17/+ mice.

Personality, social values, and marital satisfaction as predictors of parents’ rearing styles

Los estilos de crianza parentales pueden afectar la conducta y socialización de los adolescentes, por lo que es de interés conocer cómo algunas variables psicológicas de los padres se relacionan con los estilos de crianza. Este estudio tiene el objetivo de analizar los estilos de crianza de los padres, valores sociales (prestigio social, orden, benevolencia, y conservadurismo-liberalismo), los cinco grandes factores de personalidad, y la satisfacción de pareja (acuerdo general, afecto, satisfacción, y cohesión) en los padres de adolescentes. Este es un estudio prospectivo basado en método de análisis correlacional. Se encontró que los estilos educativos definidos por el cariño y aceptación se relacionan con los rasgos de personalidad como responsabilidad y estabilidad emocional, alta satisfacción de pareja y preferencia por valores prosociales. Al contrario, los estilos de crianza de sobreprotección y favoritismo se relacionan con baja amabilidad y baja apertura el poco ajuste de pareja con falta de cohesión y valores sociales definidos por falta de benevolencia y preferencia por valores de prestigio social.

Multidimensional Deprivation in Contemporary Switzerland Across Social Groups and Time

We have investigated the phenomenon of deprivation in contemporary Switzerland through the adoption of a multidimensional, dynamic approach. By applying Self Organizing Maps (SOM) to a set of 33 non-monetary indicators from the 2009 wave of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), we identified 13 prototypical forms (or clusters) of well-being, financial vulnerability, psycho-physiological fragility and deprivation within a topological dimensional space. Then new data from the previous waves (2003 to 2008) were classified by the SOM model, making it possible to estimate the weight of the different clusters in time and reconstruct the dynamics of stability and mobility of individuals within the map. Looking at the transition probabilities between year t and year t+1, we observed that the paths of mobility which catalyze the largest number of observations are those connecting clusters that are adjacent on the topological space.

Policy learning in Europe : social policy and labour market reforms in 11 countries

This report compares policy learning processes in 11 European countries. Based on the country reports that were produced by the national teams of the INSPIRES project, this paper develops an argument that connects problem pressure and politicization to learning in different labor market innovations. In short, we argue that learning efforts are most likely to impact on policy change if there is a certain problem pressure that clearly necessitates political action. On the other hand, if problem pressure is very low, or so high that governments need to react immediately, chances are low that learning impacts on policy change. The second part of our argument contends that learning impacts on policy change especially if a problem is not very politicized, i.e. there are no main conflicts concerning a reform, because then, solutions are wound up in the search for a compromise. Our results confirm our first hypothesis regarding the connection between problem pressure and policy learning. Governments learn indeed up to a certain degree of problem pressure. However, once political action becomes really urgent, i.e. in anti-crisis policies, there is no time and room for learning. On the other hand, learning occurred independently from the politicization of problem. In fact, in countries that have a consensual political system, learning occurred before the decision on a reform, whereas in majoritarian systems, learning happened after the adoption of a policy during the process of implementation.