Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Roy A. Rappaport. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.536 pp.

Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity

Ethnocentrism: Theories of conflict, ethnic attitudes, and group behavior.

Is Transparency the Key to Reducing Corruption in Resource-Rich Countries?

We present evidence on social incentives in the workplace, namely on whether workers' behaviour is affected by the presence of those they are socially tied to, even in settings where there are no externalities among workers due to either the production technology or the compensation scheme in place. To do so, we combine data on individual worker productivity from a firm's personnel records with information on each worker's social network of friends in the firm. We find that compared to when she has no social ties with her co-workers, a given worker's productivity is significantly higher when she works alongside friends who are more able than her, and significantly lower when she works with friends who are less able than her. As workers are paid piece rates based on individual productivity, social incentives can be quantified in monetary terms and are such that (i) workers who are more able than their friends are willing to exert less effort and forgo 10% of their earnings; (ii) workers who have at least one friend who is more able than themselves are willing to increase their effort and hence productivity by 10%. The distribution of worker ability is such that the net effect of social incentives on the firm's aggregate performance is positive. The results suggest that firms can exploit social incentives as an alternative to monetary incentives to motivate workers.

/pdf/social-incentives-in-the-workplace-5avsseh7re.pdf

Social Incentives in the Workplace

We compare individuals with two-person teams in signaling game experiments. Teams consistently play more strategically than individuals and generate positive synergies in more difficult games, beating a demanding “truth-wins” norm. The superior performance of teams is most striking following changes in payoffs that change the equilibrium outcome. Individuals play less strategically following the change in payoffs than inexperienced subjects playing the same game. In contrast, the teams exhibit positive learning transfer, playing more strategically following the change than inexperienced subjects. Dialogues between teammates are used to identify factors promoting strategic play.

/pdf/are-two-heads-better-than-one-team-versus-individual-play-in-4dobzmhlek.pdf

Are Two Heads Better Than One? Team versus Individual Play in Signaling Games

In this paper we analyse elections when voters underestimate the correlation between their information sources ("correlation neglect"). We find that this cognitive bias can improve political outcomes. We show that the extreme beliefs which result from correlation neglect induce some voters to base their vote on information rather than on political preferences. We characterise conditions on the distribution of preferences under which this induces higher vote shares for the optimal policies and better information aggregation.

/pdf/correlation-neglect-voting-behavior-and-information-3xbox20hck.pdf

Correlation Neglect, Voting Behavior, and Information Aggregation

In this paper we focus on strategic voting behavior when both an election and a signaling motivation affect voters' behavior. We analyze a model of elections with two candidates competing on a one-dimensional policy space. Voters are privately and imperfectly informed about a common shock affecting the electorate's preferences. Candidates are assumed to choose policy in response to information gleaned from election results and according to exogenous factors that may lead to polarization in candidates' policy choices. We analyze a subset of symmetric equilibria in which strategies are symmetric to candidates' names and private signals (CSS equilibria). We show that signaling and election motivations pull voters to vote in different directions. We provide conditions that show the relation between the amount of information aggregated in the election and the motivation that influences voting behavior the most. Finally, we show that when candidates are responsive and polarized, all CSS equilibria are inefficient in the limit.

Signaling and Election Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates

We analyze the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation, and social cooperation. We focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behavior. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, and identify a “spiritual” as well as a “material” payoff for being religious. We show that religious groups that are more demanding in their rituals are smaller, more cohesive, and are composed of individuals with more “extreme” beliefs. We use our framework to analyze the response of beliefs and religious membership to correlated shocks in society, such as natural disasters or periods of prosperity. (JEL D12, D83, Z12, Z13)

Religious Beliefs, Religious Participation, and Cooperation †

We analyze a cheap talk game, a la Crawford and Sobel, in a multidimensional state and policy space. A feature of the multidimensional state space is that communication on one dimension often reveals information on others. We show how this feature imposes bounds on communication.

On the Limits of Communication in Multidimensional Cheap Talk: A Comment

In this paper, we provide an explanation of the democratic peace hypothesis, i.e., the observation that democracies rarely fight one another. We show that in the presence of information asymmetries and strategic complements, the strategic interaction between two democracies differs from any other dyad. In our model, two democracies induce the highest probability of peaceful resolution of conflicts. But it takes two for peace; one democracy involved in a conflict does not necessarily increase the probability of a peaceful resolution compared to a conflict between two non-democratic regimes.

Ronny Razin

Papers

Correlation Neglect, Voting Behavior, and Information Aggregation

Signaling and Election Motivations in a Voting Model with Common Values and Responsive Candidates

Religious Beliefs, Religious Participation, and Cooperation †

On the Limits of Communication in Multidimensional Cheap Talk: A Comment

It Takes Two: An Explanation of the Democratic Peace