Tilburg University

About: Tilburg University is a education organization based out in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 5550 authors who have published 22330 publications receiving 791335 citations.

The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation

Abstract: This paper investigates individual motives to participate in rotating savings and credit associations (roscas).Detailed evidence from roscas in a Kenyan slum (Nairobi) suggests that most roscas are predominantly composed of women, particularly those living in a couple and earning an independent income. To explain this phenomenon, we propose an argument based on conflictual interactions within the household.Participation in a rosca is a strategy a wife employs to protect her savings against claims by her husband for immediate consumption.The empirical implications of the model are then tested using the data collected in Kenya.

Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: Gender differences in developmental changes.

Abstract: Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association with pubertal status. Adolescents (283 boys, 214 girls) reported for 6 consecutive years on their dispositional perspective taking and empathic concern and for 4 consecutive years on pubertal status. Latent growth curve modeling revealed gender differences in levels and developmental trends. Gender differences in perspective taking emerged during adolescence, with girls' increases being steeper than those of the boys. Girls also showed higher levels of empathic concern than did boys. Whereas girls' empathic concern remained stable across adolescence, boys showed a decrease from early to middle adolescence with a rebound to the initial level thereafter. Boys who were physically more mature also reported lower empathic concern than did their less physically developed peers. The current study supports theoretical notions that perspective taking develops during adolescence as a result of cognitive development. Moreover, the results suggest that pubertal maturation plays a role in boys' development of empathic concern.

Cross-Cultural Consumer Behavior: A Review of Research Findings

Abstract: Most aspects of consumer behavior are culture-bound. This article reviews the cultural relationships with the self, personality, and attitude, which are the basis of consumer behavior models and branding and advertising strategies. The Hofstede model is used to explain variance. Other consumer behavior aspects reviewed are motivation and emotions, cognitive processes such as abstract versus concrete thinking, categorization and information processing, as well as consumer behavior domains such as product ownership, decision making, and adoption and diffusion of innovations. Implications for global branding and advertising are included.

The social capital of European welfare states: the crowding out hypothesis revisited

Abstract: A recurrent critique on the welfare state is that it crowds out social capital (networks, trust and norms). However, the empirical evidence on the crowding out hypothesis is still scarce, findings are sometimes contradictory, and there is variation in the measurement of social capital. In this article we explore the crowding out hypothesis on the basis of data from the European Values Survey wave 1999/2000 for 23 European countries. Compared to (the few) other comparative studies on the hypothesis, our study contains more recent data and for a larger number of countries. Instead of focusing on a single dimension of social capital, we use an eight-scale measurement model of social capital; we explore the relationship between welfare (regime type, social spending) and social capital at both country and individual level, and we control for confounding factors. At the aggregate country level we found no evidence at all in favour of the hypothesis. At the individual level we found that it does matter for peopl...