Search

We propose a theoretical framework and develop a game-theoretical analysis to advance understanding of the cooperation dilemma in team production. We conceptualize team production as a process where productive and appropriative activities coexist, shifting the focus from whether team members cooperate to what type of cooperative behavior they are willing to adopt. Depending on the extent to which members cooperate to create value and compete to appropriate value, we can observe scenarios of full, partial, and no cooperation. After characterizing member behavior in the different scenarios, we study which form of cooperation can be sustained through repeated interaction, mutual monitoring, and reciprocity. To do so, we allow for different deviations from cooperation, which are then accompanied by different reactions according to an equivalent retaliation strategy. Our focus is on how member behavior and incentives to cooperate relate to team size. We also introduce conceptual elements that describe team production in organizational teams as well as interorganizational relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though research has repeatedly shown that non-cash incentives can be effective, cash incentives are the de facto standard in crowdsourcing contests. In this multi-study research, we quantify ideators' preferences for non-cash incentives and investigate how allowing ideators to self-select their preferred incentive—offering ideators a choice between cash and non-cash incentives—affects their creative performance. We further explore whether the market context of the organization hosting the contest—social (non-profit) or monetary (for-profit)—moderates incentive preferences and their effectiveness. We find that individuals exhibit heterogeneous incentive preferences and often prefer non-cash incentives, even in for-profit contexts. Offering ideators a choice of incentives can enhance creative performance. Market context moderates the effect of incentives, such that ideators who receive non-cash incentives in for-profit contexts tend to exert less effort. We show that heterogeneity of ideators' preferences (and the ability to satisfy diverse preferences with suitably diverse incentive options) is a critical boundary condition to realizing benefits from offering ideators a choice of incentives. We provide managers with guidance to design effective incentives by improving incentive-preference fit for ideators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic collaborations are critical to the success of efforts aimed at discovering new drugs and therapies in the biopharmaceutical industry. These collaborations aim to leverage domain expertise, asymmetries in production costs and/or capabilities to improve efficiency. Despite increasing collaborations, the biopharmaceutical industry lacks a structured guideline for choosing contracts. We present contract models with effort-based formulations that capture the key characteristics of biopharmaceutical operations and analyse incentive mechanisms such as fixed payment, revenue-sharing, risk-sharing, and cost-sharing in biopharmaceutical collaborations. We show that traditional incentive schemes do not achieve supply chain coordination, although they are commonly used in the industry. We introduce a new contract model called fee-for-effort-and-output contract that encourages the parties to exert higher efforts by offering discounts on their operating costs, and show that this contract achieves coordination with an appropriate selection of contract parameters. We also investigate the efficiency of noncoordinating contracts with traditional incentive schemes and identify the capability and cost structures under which they achieve the highest efficiency possible, to both determine the next-best alternatives and explain their popularity in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirement plans can create strong financial incentives that have important labor market implications, and many states have adopted alternative plan designs that significantly change these incentives. The authors use longitudinal data to investigate the impact of Washington State's 1996 introduction of a hybrid retirement plan on late-career attrition. The unique setup of Washington's plans allows them to provide empirical evidence on the influence of financial incentives created by statutory retirement eligibility thresholds. Findings show that despite facing very different financial incentives, teachers enrolled in the hybrid and traditional plans respond similarly to reaching a key retirement eligibility threshold. The authors hypothesize that teachers are anchoring to the eligibility thresholds, muting the influence of the financial incentives. They also provide evidence that, in the presence of bright-line eligibility thresholds that can anchor workers' separation behavior, commonly used structural models may overpredict workers' responsiveness to the financial incentives embedded in retirement plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group-based incentives are attractive in contexts where production is interdependent. Prior work shows such incentives increase group performance despite freeriding concerns, yet little is known about the effort response of individuals. Using individual-level data, the authors assess the introduction of group-based performance pay using difference-in-difference estimation. Overall, performance increased by 19%. Nearly all workers contributed to this effect. Further, two-thirds of this effect stems from increased efficiency (more output per unit of time) and one-third from higher attendance. Both incentive and selection effects are present. By leveraging individual-level data, the authors pose new questions and evidence to the group-based incentives literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how rank-order tournament incentives in the top management team (TMT) influence the quality of management earnings forecasts (MEFs). Instead of breeding feelings of inequality and fostering peer sabotage, the large pay gap between the CEO and subordinates may motivate top executives to issue more accurate and precise forecasts to win the prize of promotion. The positive tournament effect on the quality of MEFs is weakened (strengthened) when the perceived probability of promotion for candidates is low (high). We find that firms with higher tournament incentives are more likely to issue supplementary forecasts to increase the credibility of MEFs. By examining the tournament effect at each subordinate manager level, we find that CFOs are the driving force in controlling the frequency and quality of management forecasts and chief marketing officers (CMOs) may also contribute to the quality of management forecasts. The results are robust to multiple measures of tournament incentives and multiple research designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Management incentives for engaging and excelling in corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance is an important theme as business sustainability gains momentum. We examine the role of tournament incentives, which are created by competition among non-CEO (chief executive officer) senior executives (vice presidents [VPs]) for promotion to the CEO position, in firms' CSR performance. Using a sample of U.S. Standard & Poor (S&P) 1500 firms from 1993 to 2014, we find that tournament incentives proxied by pay gaps between CEOs and VPs are negatively associated with CSR performance, suggesting that competition for promotion could be detrimental for CSR performance. We further show that such association is more pronounced when the perceived probability of promotion increases prior to CEO turnover. This article provides policy, practical, and education implications and contribute to the literature on the integration of CSR into the business culture and strategic management processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the security implications of Proof-of-Work blockchains with respect to the stale block rate and the lack of a block verification process. The stale block rate is a crucial security metric that quantifies the proportion of rejected blocks in the blockchain network. The absence of a block verification process represents another critical security concern, as it permits the potential for invalid transactions within the network. In this article, we propose and implement a quantitative and analytical model to capture the primary operations of Proof-of-Work blockchains utilizing the Performance Evaluation Process Algebra. The proposed model can assist blockchain designers, architects, and analysts in achieving the ideal security level for blockchain systems by determining the proper network and consensus settings. We conduct extensive experiments to determine the sensitivity of security to four aspects: the number of active miners and their mining hash rates, the duration between blocks, the latency in block propagation, and the time required for block verification, all of which have been shown to influence the outcomes. We contribute to the findings of the existing research by conducting the first analysis of how the number of miners affects the frequency of stale block results, as well as how the delay in block propagation influences the incentives received by rational miners who choose to avoid the block verification process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the design and application of ATLAS (Automobile and Technology Lifecycle-Based ASsignment), a comprehensive household vehicle transaction and technology adoption micro-simulator in the San Francisco Bay Area. ATLAS evolves the fleet mix of individual households by simulating the vehicle transaction and choice decisions in response to co-evolving demographics, land use, and vehicle technology simulations. While most existing literature has focused on the aggregate clean vehicle uptake, this paper differentiates distributional effects and decomposes the underlying mechanisms across heterogeneous sub-populations of households. Using scenarios and sensitivity simulations that vary vehicle technology and policy assumptions, we find that Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) penetrate into higher income groups at a faster rate than into lower income groups, which is intuitive and aligns with expectations. Interestingly, the relative income disparity in ZEV ownership shrinks over time across all scenarios, with a ZEV mandate coupled with declining battery cost leading to the greatest reduction in disparity of ZEV ownership by 2050. Federal, state, and local financial incentives influence the redistribution of ZEV uptake across income groups and contribute to narrowing income disparity. Vehicle transaction frequency and new versus used market dynamics are found to be important factors contributing to the income disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of expanding anthropological perspectives beyond a US-centric view to embrace global diversity and complexity. It emphasizes the need for decolonizing research practices, addressing job market challenges, and responding to societal needs while maintaining anthropology's unique contributions. The authors advocate for collaboration, openness, and humility in exploring diverse anthropological traditions and conditions worldwide. They highlight the significance of seeking clarity amidst confusion, navigating in-between worlds, and promoting ethical considerations in anthropological research. [Extracted from the article]

Within the intricate dynamics of a blockchain system, participants with bounded rationality may engage in dishonest behavior, thereby disrupting the consensus of the system in the absence of incentive mechanisms. This vulnerability is particularly common in voting-based consensus mechanisms like Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), yet existing analyses often overlook the rational perspectives of participants. In this paper, we introduce an evolutionary game-theoretic approach to extend the current incentive mechanisms, enhancing the system's stability and security. In permissioned blockchain environments, we developed a three-party evolutionary game model involving proposers, validators and auditors that dynamically assesses node strategies under various economic incentives and attack scenarios on an improved mechanism basis. Using replicator dynamic equations, we identified the conditions under which nodes converge to different evolutionarily stable strategies. Through simulation experiments, we validated the incentive mechanism's effectiveness in promoting honest participation and resisting bribery attacks. When dishonest nodes do not exceed 80%, the system can quickly evolve to the honest state and can cope with changes in the payoff for malfeasance, whereas the original mechanism could not reach the ideal state under any condition. This achievement is attributed to the design of the mechanism and the judicious adjustment of reward and punishment parameters. The research contributes valuable findings to the discourse on consensus security. It provides key insights for developing more robust and rational incentive mechanisms in future protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) and internet of vehicles (IoV) will transform vehicular intelligence from conventional analytical intelligence to service-specific generative intelligence, enhancing vehicular services. In this context, computing force networks (CFNs), capable of flexibly scheduling widespread, multi-domain, multi-layer, and distributed resources, can cater to the demands of the IoV for ultra-high-density computing power and ultra-low latency. In CFNs, the integration of GAI and IoV consumes enormous energy, and GAI servers need to purchase energy from energy suppliers (ESs). However, the information asymmetry between GAI servers and ESs makes it difficult to price energy fairly and distributed ESs and GAI servers constitute a complex trading environment where malicious ESs may intentionally provide low-quality services. In this paper, to facilitate efficient and secure energy trading, and supply for ubiquitous AIGC services, we initially introduce an innovative CFNs-based GAI energy trading system architecture; present an energy consumption model for AIGC services, cost model of ESs, and reputation evaluation model of ESs; and obtain utility functions of GAI servers and ESs based on contract theory. Then, we propose a secure incentive mechanism in IoV, including designing an optimal contract scheme based on contract feasibility conditions and a safety guarantee mechanism based on blockchain. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of our energy trading mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classic framework of Anscombe and Aumann (Ann Math Stat 34:199–205, 1963) for decision-making under uncertainty postulates both a primary source of uncertainty (the "horse race") and an auxiliary randomization device (the "roulette wheel"). It also imposes a specific timing of resolution of uncertainty as the horse race takes place before the roulette is played. While this timing is without loss of generality for Subjective Expected Utility, it forbids plausible choice patterns of ambiguity aversion. In this paper, we reverse this timing by assuming that the roulette is played prior to the horse race and we obtain an axiomatic characterization of Choquet Expected Utility that is dual to that of Schmeidler (Econometrica 57(3):571–587, 1989). In this representation, ambiguity aversion is characterized by an aversion to conditioning roulette acts on horse events which, as we argue, is more plausible. Moreover, it can be larger than in Schmeidler's model. Finally, our reversed timing yields incentive compatibility of the random incentive mechanisms, frequently used in experiments for eliciting ambiguity attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivating "SRDI" (abbreviation for "Specialized," "Refinement," "Differential," and "Innovation") enterprises can help solve the current "bottleneck" problems faced by China, enhance the stability and competitiveness of the industrial chain and supply chain, and promote high‐quality economic development. Using the "SRDI" enterprises listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A‐shares in 2011–2021 as samples, this paper empirically tests the effect of product specialization on the internationalization level of "SRDI" enterprises. The results show that the product specialization of "SRDI" enterprises can significantly improve their internationalization level. Heterogeneity analysis shows that under the conditions of executives with overseas experience, a low degree of financing constraint, and fierce competition in the product market, the product specialization of "SRDI" enterprises has a more significant effect on improving their internationalization level. Therefore, China's "SRDI" enterprises should focus on the core business, give full play to the advantages of specialized operation, actively promote the internationalization strategy, and attach importance to the internal training and external recruitment of overseas executives. Governments at all levels should improve the policy support system, strengthen the incentive mechanism of scientific and technological innovation, and alleviate the financing constraints of "SRDI" enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The altruistic crowding‐out effect is a decrease of prosocial behavior due to monetary incentives or material rewards that intend to increase an extrinsic motivation for the behavior. The decrease in a behavior by increasing a motivation for that behavior, seems irrational, but behavioral economists presented a dozen different models to explain this crowding‐out effect. In these models, the decrease in prosocial behavior is rational in the sense that agents maximize their expected utility. All the models assume that people have utility functions that represent their preferences and motivations. This review clarifies different kinds of motivations, rewards, incentives, and crowding‐out effects, presents 13 behavioral economics models, classifies them in five types of models, discusses subtle nuances of the models, summarizes the different predictions of the different models, and provides an overview of the empirical support of the models. The main take‐away is that the crowding‐out effect could not only be explained in terms of rational, utility‐maximizing behavior, but could be done so in many (at least 13) different ways. This review can be used to improve empirical validation of the models and to gain insights in the specific contexts in which crowding‐out occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social media platforms have transformed into dynamic spaces for brand-consumer interaction, with commenting emerging as a strategic tool for brands to connect with their audience. This research study aims to examine what types of incentives trigger customers’ engagement in terms of commenting on different brand-related content types on social media. A total of 415 questionnaires were analyzed and a structural equation modeling approach was used to investigate the relationships among communal, self-interest, and reward incentives as independent variables and intentions to comment on commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle brand-related content on social media as dependent variables. The results reveal that communal and reward incentives positively influence intentions to engage in commenting on commercial, personal opinion, and lifestyle content, whereas self-interest incentives negatively influence intentions to engage in commenting on the three types of analyzed brand-related content on social media. The paper focuses specifically on intentions to comment on different types of brand-related social media content rather than on contributing activities in general. The present study fills the research gaps, concerning the lack of analysis of the influence of different incentives on intentions to comment on different brand-related content types on social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological advance in industry has complexity, divisibility, systematicity and market selectivity, and companies may generate technological investment expansion and form technological job demand, which may also lead to the occupation of company resources and trigger the replacement of the original jobs. This paper empirically examines the impact of technological advance in industry on the labour employment demand of companies by taking Chinese A-share listed companies as research samples from 2008 to 2022, and finds that: overall technological advance in industry has a suppressive effect on the labour employment demand of companies; The heterogeneity test shows that industrial technological advancement mainly produces inhibitory effects on the labour employment of low-education level employees and production sectors, while it produces incentive effects on the labour employment of high-education level employees and non-production sectors Industrial technological advancement mainly produces job substitution and destructive effects on the labour employment of low-education level employees and production sectors, while it produces incentive effects on the labour employment of high-education level employees and non-production sectors. Mechanism test shows that industrial technological advancement has incentive effects such as technology investment expansion effect and industry chain conduction effect, and also produces inhibitory effects such as enterprise resource occupation effect and employment delay effect. This paper extends the research on the impact of industrial technological advances on the labour employment demand of companies, and provides empirical evidence and policy insights for rationally arranging industrial structural transformation and labour employment decisions of companies in the context of 'stable employment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental principles of agency theory and incentive mechanisms suggest that executive compensation should align with a company's developmental goals. This paper aims to explore whether the executive compensation of listed companies in the Chinese capital market aligns with their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) practices, and the underlying mechanisms of this influence. For the first time, this study integrates ESG practices with executive compensation, creating a novel analytical framework and filling a gap in the existing literature. Employing empirical research methods such as the PSM-DID (Propensity Score Matching – Difference-in-differences) model, fixed effects model, heterogeneity analysis, and tests for mediating effects, the study concludes that ESG practices of Chinese listed companies significantly increase executive compensation, demonstrating consistency between the two. Additionally, the beneficial impact of ESG practices on executive compensation incentives is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises compared to non-state-owned ones. Financial performance, company reputation, and investor relations partially mediate the relationship between a company's ESG practices and executive compensation. Specifically, financial performance acts as a negative mediator, while company reputation and investor relations serve as positive mediators. Initially, participation in ESG practices tends to exacerbate 'income inequality' between executives and other employees. However, as companies continue to enhance their ESG practice levels, this 'income inequality' gradually diminishes. Finally, the paper offers several suggestions: Firstly, Chinese listed companies can attract and retain top executive talents by strengthening ESG practices. Although initial ESG practices may lead to pay imbalances, long-term involvement will help reduce this disparity. Secondly, investors can conduct a more comprehensive assessment of a company's future performance, governance structure, and corporate social responsibility by analyzing how ESG practices are reflected in executive compensation. Lastly, the paper provides valuable insights for policymakers, suggesting that regulators should develop more targeted policies and guidelines based on the relationship between a company's ESG practices and executive compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of accolade awards to motivate reviewers is widespread, but their effectiveness remains uncertain. We aim to explore how receiving an accolade award affects reviewers' subsequent number of reviews. In contrast to small-scale, unrepresentative experiments, we perform a large-scale, global, and all-disciplinary analysis based on quasi-natural experiments. By integrating the Publons, ORCID, MAG, SciSciNet, and OpenAlex databases, a large dataset that tracks the reviewers' annual number of reviews and their bibliometric indicators is compiled, encompassing 179,794 individuals. Among them, 6605 individuals who receive the "Publons Global Peer Review Award" in 2018 are constituted as the experimental group. Those non-winners are then matched to form a control group. Using propensity score matching (PSM), 711 and 762 reviewers are matched as the experimental and control groups respectively. An analysis employing the difference-in-differences (DiD) method is conducted to examine the impact of an accolade award on reviewers' subsequent number of reviews. It is found that, following the receipt of an accolade award, reviewers, on average, reviews about four fewer manuscripts, with the reduction exhibiting a V-shaped pattern. Additional analyses are conducted to examine how individual differences and socio-economic factors influence the awarding effects. Besides, we analyze the mechanisms underlying the awarding effect and propose strategies to motivate reviewers. In brief, the sharp decrease in marginal utility of accolades, the voluntary nature of peer review, and the unexpected properties of accolade awards are the potential mechanisms that generate the negative effect. The academic community should reassess the existing incentive strategies for reviewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biosimilars have the potential to save a significant amount of money in cancer treatment costs. However, barriers exist in the adoption of biosimilar products. Japan introduced a new health policy in 2022 to promote the use of biosimilars in oncology by offering financial incentives to eligible hospitals. This study aims to examine the association between these financial incentives and prescription patterns. Methods: The study analyzed Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) data to assess the impact of the new health policy on the use of biosimilar products in oncology. The policy provided an additional fee for hospitals using biosimilar products. The study included patients with specific types of cancer and analyzed the proportion of monthly biosimilar prescriptions using the number of prescriptions of reference and biosimilar products. A generalized synthetic control method was used for analysis. Results: From April 2020 to March 2023, the study involved 27,737 patients in 114 hospitals, with 63 eligible hospitals receiving financial incentives. The average number of prescriptions of the drugs (rituximab, trastuzumab, and bevacizumab) increased gradually in both eligible and ineligible hospitals. The financial incentives were associated with a significant increase in the proportion of biosimilar product prescriptions, with a monthly increase of 0.092 per month (95% CI, 0.040–0.145) [9.2%, 95% CI, 4.0–14.5] compared to ineligible hospitals. Conclusion: Our study indicates that providing financial incentives to hospitals to utilize biosimilar products increased their prescriptions. Japan's recent health policy of moderate financial incentives is an effective approach to increasing prescriptions of biosimilar products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contingency management (CM) is notably successful as a substance use disorder treatment and is most effective when targeting monosubstance use. Evidence suggests the effects of CM exceed predictions based on the value of the incentives delivered for monosubstance abstinence. In this systematic review, we examine common variations of CM interventions applied to a single substance to determine what factors may contribute to the larger effect. Our results show that CM produced moderate to large effect sizes when single drugs were targeted, with stable effects over time. We also found that interventions targeting cocaine abstinence overwhelmingly outperformed their predicted effect, whereas interventions for smoking cessation did not. Thus, incentives alone may not account for the success of CM, at least when applied to stimulant use disorder. We propose other potential sources of the effect including social reinforcement and the specific parameters of the reinforcement schedule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital finance provides new possible ways to promote innovation-driven development strategies. Using data of 257 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this paper examines the impact of digital finance on regional innovation, as well as the mediating effect of resource mismatch underlies it. The empirical results are as follows. First, digital finance can significantly boost innovation, both in terms of the quantity and quality. Second, the incentive effects of innovation have been more obviously observed in the eastern cities and the cities with high financial levels or light digital divides in China. Third, the mechanism effect implies that digital finance works positively on innovation through improving the factor allocation efficiency by alleviating the misallocation of labour and capital. These conclusions indicate that to better promote regional innovation, it is crucial to encourage the digital transformation of the financial industry, enhance digital infrastructure development, and facilitate the free flow of resources among regions. The paper offers both theoretical and empirical evidence that digital finance influences regional innovation by alleviating resource mismatches. It also examines the role of the ‘digital divide’ in shaping innovation through digital finance. These two points constitute the key innovations of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Dragon boat racing, a popular aquatic folklore team sport, is traditionally held during the Dragon Boat Festival. Inspired by this event, we propose a novel human‐based meta‐heuristic algorithm called dragon boat optimization (DBO) in this paper. It models the unique behaviours of each crew member on the dragon boat during the race by introducing social psychology mechanisms (social loafing, social incentive). Throughout this process, the focus is on the interaction and collaboration among the crew members, as well as their decision‐making in various situations. During each iteration, DBO implements different state updating strategies. By accurately modelling the crew's behaviour and employing adaptive state update strategies, DBO consistently achieves high optimization performance, as validated by comprehensive testing on 29 benchmark functions and 2 structural design problems. Experimental results indicate that DBO outperforms 7 and 16 state‐of‐the‐art meta‐heuristic algorithms across these test functions and problems, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study explores the integration of financial stability regulation in professional soccer within the framework of sport governance, focusing on the German context. The research examines how financial regulations influence key governance principles such as accountability, transparency, and sustainability, while also addressing the challenges posed by the dynamic nature of professional soccer. Methods: A qualitative methodology was employed, using focus group discussions with nine experts, including representatives from soccer clubs, auditing firms and other relevant stakeholders. The discussions aimed to capture diverse perspectives on the impact of financial stability regulation on governance practices within the German soccer league and clubs. Results: The findings reveal that financial stability regulation is effective in promoting financial discipline and accountability at both league and club levels. However, the study also identifies challenges, such as the need for greater harmonization of regulatory frameworks across different levels of professional soccer and the potential benefits of implementing incentive mechanisms within the financial stability regulation to improve governance at the league and club levels. Discussion: The study underscores the importance of a multi-dimensional approach to financial stability regulation, considering political, systemic, and organizational dimensions. It highlights the potential for improving governance through the adoption of independent governance models and more practical applications of governance principles. Future research could further explore these areas, offering insights that could enhance the effectiveness of financial regulation in professional soccer and potentially other sport contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The model of pay-for-knowledge incentivizes individuals with financial rewards for sharing their expertise, facilitating a transactional exchange between knowledge providers (sellers) and seekers (buyers). While this model is effective in promoting paid contributions, its influence on free knowledge exchanges remains ambiguous, creating uncertainty about its overall impact on platform knowledge ecosystems. This study aims to explore the mechanim of how knowledge payment influences free knowledge contribution. Based on relational signaling theory, this study posits that a buyer's payment for knowledge acts as a positive relational signal in the buyer–seller relationship and examines how the signaling effect varies across different social contexts through attribution theory. Design/methodology/approach: This paper empirically tests the hypotheses by analyzing a data set comprising 630 instances from 359 unique knowledge sellers on Zhihu, a prominent knowledge-sharing platform in China. This paper use zero-inflated negative binomial models to conduct this analysis. Findings: The findings reveal that when buyers pay for knowledge, this action positively influences sellers to contribute knowledge for free. However, the strength of this influence is moderated by the platform's social functions: appreciation feedback tends to weaken this effect, while social network ties enhance it. Originality/value: Prior research has predominantly focused on the financial incentives of pay-for-knowledge and its spillover effects on unpaid users' activities. This study shifts the focus to the social dimensions of pay-for-knowledge, arguing that buyer-initiated knowledge payments signal buyers' commitment to foster reciprocal relationships with sellers. It expands the literature on the relationship between knowledge payment and contribution, moving beyond financial incentives to include social factors, thus enriching our understanding of the interplay between paid and free knowledge activities. Additionally, the empirical evidence supports the efficacy of pay-for-knowledge in promoting both free and paid contributions within knowledge-sharing platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to use the knowledge management perspective to examine the mechanism through which entrepreneurship drives firms' technological innovation in the digital age. The objective is to develop a multi-stage integrated theoretical model to explain how entrepreneurship exerts its influence on firms' technological innovation with a particular focus on the knowledge management perspective. The findings can be used for the cultivation of entrepreneurship and for the promotion of continuous technological innovation activities. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a case-based qualitative approach to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation. The authors first analyze the case of SANY and then explore the mechanism of how entrepreneurship can promote a firm's technological innovation from the perspective of knowledge management based on the technology-organization-environment framework. An integrated theoretical model is then developed in this study. Findings: Based on a case study, the authors propose that there are three main processes of knowledge management in firms' technological innovation: knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration and knowledge creation. In the process of knowledge acquisition, the joint effects of innovation spirit, learning spirit, cooperation spirit and global vision drive the construction and its healthy development of firms' innovation ecosystem. In the process of knowledge integration, the joint effects of innovation spirit, cooperation spirit and learning spirit help complete the integration of knowledge and further the accumulation of firms' core knowledge resources. In the process of knowledge creation, the joint effects of mission spirit, learning spirit and innovation spirit encourage the top management team to establish long-term goals and innovation philosophy. This philosophy can promote the establishment of a people-oriented incentive mechanism that helps achieve the transformation from the accumulation of core knowledge resources to the research and innovation of core technologies. After these three stages, firms are passively engaged in the "reverse transfer of knowledge" step, which contributes to other firms' knowledge management cycle. With active knowledge acquisition, integration, creation and passive reverse knowledge transfer, firms can achieve continuous technological innovation. Research limitations/implications: This study has important theoretical implications in entrepreneurship research. This study helps advance the understanding of entrepreneurship and literature on the relationship between entrepreneurship and technological innovation in the digital age, which can broaden the application of knowledge management theories. It can also help better understand how to develop healthy firm-led innovation ecosystems to achieve continuous optimization of knowledge and technological innovation in the digital age. Originality/value: This study proposes an integrated theoretical model to address the issues of entrepreneurship and firms' technological innovation in the digital age, and it is also one of few studies that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation from a knowledge management perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) play a vital role in promoting financial inclusion and reducing poverty by providing credit to marginalized populations. However, sustainability issues arise due to challenges in loan repayment. This study examines the factors influencing loan repayment among microfinance borrowers in Tanzania, specifically the impact of dynamic incentives, joint liability, and regular group meetings. Using survey data from 251 MFI borrowers, we analyzed repayment behavior among individuals in group loans through correlation and multiple regression techniques. The results indicate that dynamic incentives and joint liability improve repayment behavior, supporting information asymmetry and carrot/stick theories by reducing information gaps. Joint liability, in particular, fosters mutual trust and accountability, as members become more involved in monitoring and reporting each other’s activities to lenders. These findings suggest that MFIs should enhance group lending management practices. For regulators, formalizing and legally recognizing community groups would further support their access to financial services. This study highlights the importance of structured group dynamics in improving loan repayment rates, which are crucial for the sustainability of MFIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Incentives are a widely used tool for addressing deforestation and are often implemented as collective contracts. Local institutions are crucial to the solution of collective action problems associated with forest conservation, but we still have little knowledge of how to encourage institutional creation through policy. Since collective contracts do not eliminate freeriding incentives, we argue that their success hinges on their ability to stimulate the creation of institutions for collective action. To test these ideas, we analyze data from an incentivized lab‐in‐the‐field experimental collective action game played with natural resource users in four developing countries. The experiment simulates management of a common forest, and groups were randomly assigned to a conservation incentive payment condition. We observe how much group members attempt to coordinate on the creation of institutional rules and find experimental evidence that an external incentive program can stimulate the endogenous creation of informal institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the growing role and importance of socially responsible business behavior. This is associated with a number of factors, such as the increasing ethical consciousness of society, the growing impact of business on the environment and people’s lives, and intensified competition in the market. It is noted that socially responsible business behavior involves respect for human rights, environmental protection, investment in human capital, and the fight against corruption. The purpose of the article is to explore and substantiate the ways to stimulate business towards socially responsible and respect human rights in the economic sphere. This goal is realized in the article by solving the following research tasks: the author analyzes the concept and essence of socially responsible business behavior and respect for human rights in international legal documents; defines the basic principles of socially responsible business behavior; studies the factors influencing the incentives for business towards socially responsible behavior; and develops and substantiates a complex of measures to stimulate business towards socially responsible behavior and respect for human rights. The author explores the role of business in society and the need to take into account social and ethical aspects in its activities. The author analyzes the impact of socially responsible behavior of business entities on economic development and positive impact on society as a whole. The expected results of the proposed measures are determined. The general conclusion of the article is that socially responsible business behavior and respect for human rights in the economic sphere are important components of sustainable development in modern society. Specific recommendations are proposed for enterprises to engage in these processes and maximize their social impact. The results of this study can be used to develop and implement state policy in the field of stimulating socially responsible business behavior, as well as for self-improvement of business entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of competitive sports, the evaluation of compensation incentive effectiveness is key to the optimization of compensation systems for athletes. This study creates a model of the athlete compensation incentive effect from single and multinomial grouping perspectives, combining empirical research (SEM) with fuzzyset qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) based on a sample of 352 validated data. The results lead to two findings. First, athletes' direct economic compensation, direct non-economic compensation, and indirect non-economic compensation have a significant positive effect on the incentive effect of compensation. Second, that the incentive effect of high compensation has two configurations, namely "economic value" and "economic environmental value." It seems that the effective combination of compensation factors can enhance the motivation effect in a "different way." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unnecessary care, where the potential for harm exceeds the potential for benefit, is widespread in medical care. Orthopaedic surgery is no exception. This has significant implications for patient safety and health care expenditure. This narrative review explores unnecessary care in orthopaedic surgery. There is wide geographic variation in orthopaedic surgical practice that cannot be explained by differences in local patient populations. Furthermore, many orthopaedic interventions lack adequate low‐bias evidence to support their use. Quantifying the size of the problem is difficult, but the economic burden and morbidity associated with unnecessary care is likely to be significant. An evidence gap, evidence‐practice gap, cognitive biases, and health system factors all contribute to unnecessary care in orthopaedic surgery. Unnecessary care is harming patients and incurring high costs. Solutions include increasing awareness of the problem, aligning financial incentives to high value care and away from low value care, and demanding low bias evidence where none exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of China's growing weight as a technological power in the international arena, an increasing body of literature is dedicated to conceptualizing China as a nascent norm-shaper in global cyber governance. However, a nuanced investigation into the process of China's norm diffusion in cyber governance has been lacking. Drawing on the latest advancements from norm diffusion theory, this study provides a nuanced understanding of the complex and multidimensional nature of China's cyber-governance norm cluster and the diffusion mechanisms. By contesting the linear and static conceptualization of norms, this study conceptualizes China's cyber governance norms through the lens of norm cluster. It demonstrates that China has actively promoted a constellation of values and appropriate behaviours in order to address the myriad of problems and challenges it identifies in global cyber governance, revolving around three core values, namely: cyber sovereignty, multilateralism and the balance between security and development. This research also demonstrates that instead of using a single diffusion mechanism, China has relied on a dynamic combination of socialization and positive incentives which are driven by both state-led actors and private sectors to diffuse its cyber norms and approaches at regional and international levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The limited existing research on how jurors evaluate informant testimony suggests jurors may not be appropriately responsive to cues that could signal informant unreliability. In particular, jurors may fail to account for and properly weigh evidence that an informant is testifying for an incentive when reaching a verdict. However studies in this area have some limitations in case type, materials used, and statistical power. The objective of the current study is to advance the research in each of these areas and provide new evidence about the impact of juror perceptions of informant incentives. This study used a novel fact pattern, video stimuli manipulations, and a large sample pool to test the impact of informant incentives on juror judgments. Participants who observed a highly incentivized informant, but not those who observed less incentivized informants, were more likely to acquit compared to participants who viewed an otherwise identical non-incentivized informant. Participants were also sensitive to incentive size in making situational attributions about the informant's motivation to testify. The results suggest that jurors may be capable of accounting for informant incentives in reaching a verdict, but only when the incentive size is substantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces a novel parcel locker location problem in the last mile delivery where each parcel locker is equipped with a set of selectable volume sizes and provides services for two types of customers: commuters and home-based customers. We establish a pickup cost model to quantify the effort exerted by customers during the retrieval process. Furthermore, we design a satisfaction function to measure customers' willingness to retrieve items from a specific parcel locker. Finally, we implement a financial incentive mechanism to enhance customer satisfaction by reducing the pickup cost. To solve this problem, we formulate a problem-specific scatter search algorithm. Extensive experiments demonstrate the computational effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses show that the selectable volume size model can reduce the total cost by up to 16.8%, while "pickup on the way" can achieve a reduction of up to 63.97% in our instances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is already a wealth of literature on how the design of salary for technicians affects corporate innovation, but the influential mechanisms of executive incentives on corporate innovation have not received sufficient attention. As a source of motivation for executives to promote innovation, the design of pay gap plays an important role in improving firm's innovation performance. In this research, we attempt to examine the impact of the executive team's internal pay gap on corporate innovation using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2016 to 2021. The results are as follows. Firstly, pay gap among executives can significantly enhance a firm's innovation performance. Secondly, the executive pay gap promotes innovation through the stability of executive team members. Thirdly, executive compensation stickiness moderates pay gap and firm's innovation positively. This paper reveals the mechanism by which the executive pay gap affects corporate innovation and suggests that companies should formulate effective compensation incentive mechanisms to stimulate executives' enthusiasm for innovative projects, and strengthen executive support and promotion of corporate innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the factors influencing the adoption and utilization of Mobility as a Service (MaaS), particularly focusing on carsharing and micromobility. Our objective was to understand how policy, physical infrastructure, social interactions, and individual attributes shape the use of MaaS. To this end, we conducted a systematic literature review using an adapted socio-ecological model. Our methodology involved a comprehensive search in the Scopus database using keywords related to MaaS and socio-ecological aspects, which yielded 420 relevant articles. These articles were analyzed for their alignment with the socio-ecological model across the specific dimensions of Personal Attributes, Community Interactions, Physical and Infrastructural Aspects, and Governance and Policy, as well as their relevance to MaaS. Key findings indicate that political decisions, including cooperation with public transport, environmental zones, and monetary incentives, significantly impact MaaS adoption. The study highlights the importance of policy in implementing micromobility models. Additionally, physical factors like infrastructure, geographic considerations, and urban design are crucial. Social context elements such as age, gender, education, and income also play a significant role, with higher education and income levels, as well as younger age groups, being more likely to adopt MaaS. Individual factors, including personal preferences and ecological consciousness, are pivotal, with perceived economic benefits being a primary driver for carsharing adoption. In carpooling, beyond the expected impacts of financial incentives, we highlighted the critical role of social norms and peer influences, particularly how visible carpooling by peers can drive adoption rates--a key finding for designing targeted social marketing strategies. For micro-mobility, the crucial finding was that infrastructure adaptations (such as the integration of dedicated lanes) not only support usage but also significantly enhance user safety and satisfaction, suggesting that physical infrastructure investments must be at the forefront of urban planning for effective micromobility integration. In conclusion, this research underscores the complex interplay of policy, physical, social, and individual contexts in MaaS utilization. It advocates for a balanced, context-specific approach to promoting shared MaaS, addressing both user-specific needs and broader transportation policy objectives. The study also suggests future research directions, including the impacts of MaaS on transportation, the role of technology and data, and the socio-economic aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that financially incentivizing sustainable behaviors may undermine individuals' conformity to pro-environmental social norms, but it remains unclear why and when such a crowding out effect occurs. Using data from a quasi-experiment in Quzhou, China, this study has tested crowding out in a local incentive program for household recycling and evaluated the causal mechanisms and boundary conditions of crowding out. The reward program reduced residents' inclination to conform to their neighbors' recycling behaviors and persuasion, which was driven by the lowering of the first- and second-order beliefs underlying norm conformity. The crowding out effect and pathways were particularly salient among people with high levels of environmental self-identity or community social embeddedness. Moreover, framing the incentivized behavior in an environmentally beneficial way could not mitigate crowding out. Overall, the results contribute to refined theories of crowding out and have important implications for the design of environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the timing of corporate disclosure in the context of Georgia, an emerging market where a recent reform of corporate financial transparency mandated about 80,000 private sector entities to publicly disclose their annual financial statements. Design/methodology/approach: The main analysis covers more than 4,000 large, medium, small and micro private sector entities, for which the data is obtained from the Ministry of Finance of Georgia. This paper builds an empirical model of logit/probit regression, with industry fixed and random effects to investigate the drivers of the corporate disclosure timing. Findings: Findings suggest that the mean reporting time lag is 279 days after the fiscal year-end, that is nine days after the statutory deadline. Almost one-third (30%) of the entities miss the nine-month statutory deadline, while the timely filers almost unexceptionally file immediately before the deadline. Multivariate tests reveal that voluntarily filing entities completed the process significantly faster than those mandated to do so; audited financial statements take more time to be filed, whereas those with unqualified audit opinion or audited by large/international audit firms are filed faster than their counterparts. The author concludes that despite the overall high filing rates, the timing of corporate disclosure is not (yet) efficiently enforced in practice (but is progressing over time), whereas regulatory incentives prevail over market incentives among the timely filers. Originality/value: To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study that explores corporate disclosure timing incentives in the context of Georgia. This study extends prior literature on the timing of financial information from an emerging country's private sector perspective, with juxtaposed market and regulatory incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas users claim to be concerned about privacy, often they do little to protect their privacy in their online actions. One prominent explanation for this privacy paradox is that, when an individual shares data, it is not just the individual's privacy that is compromised; the privacy of other individuals with correlated data is also compromised. This information leakage encourages oversharing of data and significantly impacts the incentives of individuals in online platforms. In this paper, we study the design of mechanisms for data acquisition in settings with information leakage and verifiable data. We design an incentive-compatible mechanism that optimizes the worst case trade-off between bias and variance of the estimation subject to a budget constraint, with which the worst case is over the unknown correlation between costs and data. Additionally, we characterize the structure of the optimal mechanism in closed form and study monotonicity and nonmonotonicity properties of the marketplace. Funding: This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 62202512 and 62271434], Shenzhen Science and Technology Program [Grant JCYJ20210324120011032], Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [Grant 2021B1515120008], Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Crowd Intelligence Empowered Low-Carbon Energy Network [Grant ZDSYS20220606100601002], and the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society. This work is also supported by the National Science Foundation [Grants CNS-2146814, CPS-2136197, CNS-2106403, and NGSDI-2105648]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2023.0022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To increase charitable donations, not-for-profit organisations sometimes include a pre-giving incentive such as a monetary gift alongside a request to donate. Little is known about how monetary pre-giving incentives impact subsequent donation intentions, particularly for young consumers who are an important market for the not-for-profit sector. Using the principles of reciprocity, this paper aims to examine whether the value of monetary pre-giving incentives induces obligation (i.e. a negative psychological state) and/or gratitude (i.e. a positive psychological state) and whether this subsequently impact young consumers' initial donation amount and future donation intention. Design/methodology/approach: This research uses a one-factor, three-level between-subjects experimental design (n = 274) to test the effect of different values of pre-giving incentives on gratitude, obligation, initial donation amount and future donation intentions of young consumers. Findings: Higher value pre-giving incentives increase young consumers' experience of obligation and subsequent donation intention as well as future donation intention. Unexpectedly, gratitude towards the organisation was not influenced by the value of the pre-giving incentive but did increase obligation. Originality/value: This research highlights an ethical tension about the use of pre-giving incentives to solicit donations from young consumers: while this strategy is effective, it activates an obligation that can negatively impact young consumers' wellbeing. As such, it also contributes to extending the limited empirical examination of the ethics of fundraising. Theoretically, this research extends understanding of the distinct but simultaneous mechanisms of gratitude and obligation, which has not received sufficient research attention, generated by the norm of reciprocity within the not-for-profit context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how digitalization empowers government auditing with technical power to serve national governance better. Design/methodology/approach: This study measures the audit digitalization (AD) index by textual analysis method and matches the provincial AD index with the Chinese listed firm's data from 2011 to 2019. The two-way fixed effect regression is used to explore the nexus of audit digitalization and corporate green innovation. Findings: The empirical results demonstrate that government audit digitalization stimulates corporate green innovation, especially for substantive green innovation. Research and development expenditures on personnel and capital are influential mediators and are increased by audit digitalization. The heterogeneity analysis indicates the anti-driving effect for fewer audit informatization expenditures or lower environmental audit coverage, and the incentive effect for state-owned enterprises or firms with corporate social responsibility reports. Originality/value: The incremental contribution lies in recognizing the progress of government audit digitalization and its role from digital to environmental governance, which extends digital capabilities and digital expertise into the government audit view. Based on textual analysis, a reliable dictionary of audit digitalization is built by machine-learning methods. Then, the authors confirm the effectiveness of audit digitalization, especially when other forms of digitalization fail to promote substantive green innovation. This study also attests to the anti-driving and incentive effect from the external governance perspective. The authors' findings have implications for digital ecological civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online social media (OSM) has revolutionized the manner in which communication unfolds, enabling users to spontaneously generate, disseminate, share, and aggregate multimedia data across the internet. Nevertheless, in this exchange of information, OSM platforms assume a dominant, central role, wielding excessive power. Blockchain online social media (BOSM) seeks to mitigate the drawbacks of traditional centralized OSM by leveraging the decentralized nature of blockchain technology, migrating the functionalities of social media into a decentralized realm, and positioning the users at the core of the OSM ecosystem. However, current BOSM models often rely on tokens for incentives and are hampered by the centralized, inefficient blockchain consensus mechanisms, alongside vulnerabilities such as collusion attacks. This paper introduces a novel blockchain system, NexoNet, tailored for decentralized social media, exploring the application of blockchain technology in the realm of online social media from both technical and economic perspectives. The NexoNet quantifies and evaluates user participation within the system, employing a multiple incentive mechanism to equitably distribute value created by users without the need for tokens. Furthermore, we propose the Proof-of-Active-Participation (PoAP) blockchain consensus mechanism, enabling all users to partake in the maintenance of the blockchain system, thus ensuring its security and efficiency. Theoretical analysis and simulations across various scenarios demonstrate that the NexoNet, with extensive user engagement, achieves equitable value distribution through its multiple incentive mechanism. It successfully safeguards against a spectrum of malicious attacks and attains high transaction processing efficiency. The simulation results show that NexoNet achieves an average transaction throughput of 2000 transactions per second (TPS) and a consensus delay of 2.385 s with 100 maintainers in the network. Furthermore, our tests demonstrated that even collusion with users comprising 75% of the total would only allow an additional 30 chances to propose a block. By deeply integrating user behavior with the underlying mechanisms of the blockchain system, the NexoNet fosters a user-centric blockchain social media ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online reviews play a crucial role in influencing seller–customer dynamics. This research evaluates the credibility and consistency of reviews based on volume, length, and content to understand the impacts of incentives on customer review behaviors, how to improve review quality, and decision-making in purchases. The data analysis reveals major factors such as costs, support, usability, and product features that may influence the impact. The analysis also highlights the indirect impact of company size, the direct impact of user experience, and the varying impacts of changing conditions over the years on the volume of incentive reviews. This study uses methodologies such as Sentence-BERT (SBERT), TF-IDF, spectral clustering, t-SNE, A/B testing, hypothesis testing, and bootstrap distribution to investigate how semantic variances in reviews could be used for personalized shopping experiences. It reveals that incentive reviews have minimal to no impact on purchasing decisions, which is consistent with the credibility and consistency analysis in terms of volume, length, and content. The negligible impact of incentive reviews on purchase decisions underscores the importance of authentic online feedback. This research clarifies how review characteristics sway consumer choices and provides strategic insights for businesses to enhance their review mechanisms and customer engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a difference-in-differences empirical research framework that utilizes the Green Financial Reform and Innovation Pilot Zone (GFRIPZ) implemented in China in 2017 as an exogenous shock to identify the incentive and synergy effect of green finance (GF) on enterprise green innovation (GI). The results indicate that GF effectively stimulates enterprise GI and significantly influences the allocation of external and internal funds among industries. GF effectively stimulates GI in clean and non-polluting industries by increasing debt financing and productive investment. However, it has a punitive effect on debt financing of heavy-polluting industries, and the GI effect on heavy-polluting industries is insignificant, although it enhances R&D investment among industries. GF can produce a good synergistic effect with green policies, but the synergistic effect on non-green policies is not obvious. GF mainly promotes GI in non-state, big, and enterprises in areas with high marketization. Moreover, only the heavy pollution industry presents significant environmental performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formal recycling of municipal solid waste plays a crucial role in establishing a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society. In China, policy-makers have implemented various financial incentives to promote the growth of the formal recycling sector. However, informal recycling still dominates the market, resulting in relatively low rates of formal recycling. To shed light on the mechanisms and effects of policies, the price competition of recyclers is introduced, and the two-way interaction between residents and recyclers is considered. A multi-agent-based simulation model including residents, formal recyclers, and informal recyclers is constructed to explore the differential effects of subsidy policies on different participants. The results show significant variations in the effectiveness of single-agent subsidy policies. Notably, the subsidy policy for formal recyclers outperforms the negative subsidy policy for informal recyclers. The former promotes the spontaneous regularization of more than 60% of residents while improving the profit level of formal recyclers. Furthermore, a multi-agent mixed policy for residents and formal and informal recyclers is the optimal subsidy strategy for waste management, enabling more than 60% of residents to choose formal recycling while causing the profits of formal recyclers to exceed those of informal recyclers by 1.5 times. Moreover, the price competition of recyclers is a vicious competition mode that blindly pursues the recovery amount at the expense of economic profits. The results not only clarify the differential effects of diverse subsidy policies but also furnish valuable insights for the government to design more targeted waste recycling policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How regime types affect the provision of social spending in the context of developing countries? This article provides a novel political-economic approach, arguing that single-party regimes are more likely to spend on pensions than other types of autocratic states to co-opt the large number of critical members although the regime type does not affect the general welfare spending across autocratic states. The theory emphasizes the effect of institutional and power structure heterogeneity across autocracies in shaping the incentives and strategies that the ruling elites co-opt and respond to the demands of the ruling coalition across different autocratic regimes. Using panel, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with lagged dependent variable along with several empirical strategies, it finds the evidence supporting this argument with a new dataset from 1990 to 2012. The study provides new insights on how autocratic institutions especially the party utilize strategic social policies to resolve the elite-level dictator dilemma for regime survival that are absent in other autocratic types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosure has drawn much attention from listed companies, investors, and regulators. In response to the increasing demand of investors and regulators for non‐financial information, listed companies have paid attention to publishing ESG reports consisting of environmental, social, and governance information. Listed companies are increasingly required to provide high‐quality information that is clear and comparable. However, the lack of incentive to listed companies makes it hard to improve the quality of ESG disclosure, and the cost of ESG disclosure leads to the uncontrollable quality of ESG reports and may even manipulation by opportunistic behaviors. In this paper, we illustrate the moral hazard problem in ESG disclosure from the perspective of investors and listed companies, in which the effort level for listed companies to provide high‐quality ESG report cannot be observed by investors. Then we propose a blockchain‐based incentive mechanism for ESG disclosure from a principal‐agent perspective to improve the information quality of ESG disclosure, where investors act as principal and listed companies act as agents. Token in blockchain technology is utilized as the rewards to improve the listed companies' reputation, thus increasing their chance of being promoted to investors for preferential investment opportunities in the blockchain platform. We then design the first‐best (FB) and second‐best (SB) optimal contracts based on classic principal‐agent model to overcome the moral hazard problem. Extensive simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the incentive mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use of social signaling as a policy tool to sustainably affect childhood immunization. In a 26-month field experiment with public clinics in Sierra Leone, I introduce a verifiable signal—in the form of color-coded bracelets—given to children upon timely completion of the first four or all five required vaccinations. Signals increase parents' belief in the visibility of their actions and knowledge of other children's vaccine status. The impact of signals varies significantly with the cost and perceived benefits of the action. There are no discernible effects on timely and complete immunization when the signal is linked to an easier-to-complete vaccine with low perceived benefits, and large positive effects when the signal is linked to a costlier-to-achieve vaccine with high perceived benefits. Parents adjust their behavior nine months before realizing the social image benefit, demonstrating the motivational strength of signaling incentives. Of substantive policy importance, bracelets increase full immunization at one year of age by 9 percentage points, with impacts persisting at two years of age. At a marginal cost of US$24.7 per fully immunized child, social signals can be as cost-effective as financial or in-kind incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]