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Over the past decade the international community, especially the World Bank, has conducted programs to increase local public service delivery in developing countries by improving local governing institutions and creating social capital. This paper evaluates one such program in Sudan to answer the question: Can the international community change the grassroots civic culture of developing countries to increase social capital? The paper offers three contributions. First, it uses lab-in-the-field measures to focus on the effects of the program on pro-social preferences without the confounding influence of any program- induced changes on local governing institutions. Second, it tests whether the program led to denser social networks in recipient communities. Based on these two measures, the effect of the program was a precisely estimated zero. However, in a retrospective survey, respondents from program communities characterized their behavior as being more pro-social and their communities more socially cohesive. This leads to a third contribution of the paper: it provides evidence for the hypothesis, stated by several scholars in the literature, that retrospective survey measures of social capital over biased evidence of a positive effect of these programs. Regardless of one's faith in retrospective self-reported survey measures, the results clearly point to zero impact of the program on pro-social preferences and social network density. Therefore, if the increase in self-reported behaviors is accurate, it must be because of social sanctions that enforce compliance with pro-social norms through mechanisms other than the social networks that were measured.

Civic Culture --- Communities & Human Settlements --- Community Development and Empowerment --- Governance --- Governance Indicators --- Governing Institutions --- Housing & Human Habitats --- Pro-Social Preferences --- Social Capital --- Social Cohesion --- Social Development --- Social Networks

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How do interacting decision-makers make strategic choices? If they’re rational and can somehow predict each other’s behavior, they may find themselves in a Nash equilibrium. However, humans display pervasive and systematic departures from rationality. They often do not conform to the predictions of the Nash equilibrium, or its various refinements. This has led to the growth of behavioral game theory, which accounts for how people actually make strategic decisions by incorporating social preferences, bounded rationality (for example, limited iterated reasoning), and learning from experience. This book brings together new advances in the field of behavioral game theory that help us understand how people actually make strategic decisions in game-theoretic situations.

Economics, finance, business & management --- social preferences --- third-party punishment --- cognitive reflection ability --- intuition --- reflection --- dictator game --- ultimatum game --- potential games --- social welfare --- risk dominance --- payoff dominance --- innovation diffusion --- externalities --- decomposition --- strategic communication --- two-stage games --- pareto efficient equilibria --- belief formation --- learning --- behavioral game theory --- case-based decision theory --- level-k reasoning --- guessing game --- cognitive load --- endogenous depth of reasoning --- strategic thinking --- social preferences --- third-party punishment --- cognitive reflection ability --- intuition --- reflection --- dictator game --- ultimatum game --- potential games --- social welfare --- risk dominance --- payoff dominance --- innovation diffusion --- externalities --- decomposition --- strategic communication --- two-stage games --- pareto efficient equilibria --- belief formation --- learning --- behavioral game theory --- case-based decision theory --- level-k reasoning --- guessing game --- cognitive load --- endogenous depth of reasoning --- strategic thinking

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The general assumption that social policy should be utilitarian--that society should be organized to yield the greatest level of welfare--leads inexorably to increased government interventions. Historically, however, the science of economics has advocated limits to these interventions for utilitarian reasons and because of the assumption that people know what is best for themselves. But more recently, behavioral economics has focused on biases and inconsistencies in individual behavior. Based on these developments, governments now prescribe the foods we eat, the apartments we rent, and the composition of our financial portfolios. The Tyranny of Utility takes on this rise of paternalism and its dangers for individual freedoms, and examines how developments in economics and the social sciences are leading to greater government intrusion in our private lives. Gilles Saint-Paul posits that the utilitarian foundations of individual freedom promoted by traditional economics are fundamentally flawed. When combined with developments in social science that view the individual as incapable of making rational and responsible choices, utilitarianism seems to logically call for greater governmental intervention in our lives. Arguing that this cannot be defended on purely instrumental grounds, Saint-Paul calls for individual liberty to be restored as a central value in our society. Exploring how behavioral economics is contributing to the excessive rise of paternalistic interventions, The Tyranny of Utility presents a controversial challenge to the prevailing currents in economic and political discourse.

Welfare economics. --- Utilitarianism. --- Paternalism. --- Public welfare. --- Benevolent institutions --- Poor relief --- Public assistance --- Public charities --- Public relief --- Public welfare --- Public welfare reform --- Relief (Aid) --- Social welfare --- Welfare (Public assistance) --- Welfare reform --- Parentalism --- Government policy --- Human services --- Social service --- Social classes --- Social control --- Social systems --- Economic policy --- Economics --- Social policy --- Ethics --- Hedonism --- Philosophy --- Welfare economics --- Utilitarianism --- Paternalism --- E-books --- 201 --- 305.6 --- 321.2 --- AA / International- internationaal --- Sociologie: algemeenheden --- Risicotheorie, speltheorie. Risicokapitaal. Beslissingsmodellen --- Economisch beleid van de overheid --- Coasian view. --- Freudianism. --- Friedrich Nietzsche. --- Lockean theory. --- Man. --- Pareto improvements. --- Pigovian taxation. --- Postmodernism. --- addictive goods. --- autonomy. --- behavioral biases. --- behavioral economics. --- behavioral issues. --- behavioral problems. --- cognitive capacity. --- competitive markets. --- consistent behavior. --- consistent self. --- divine order. --- economic theory. --- economics. --- externality. --- financial capacity. --- free markets. --- global efficiency. --- government control. --- government intervention. --- government intrusion. --- government involvement. --- happiness. --- incarnations. --- incentives. --- individual freedom. --- individual liberty. --- individual rights. --- individual welfare. --- individual well-being. --- individualistic values. --- intellectual apparatus. --- intellectual safeguard. --- laissez-faire. --- legitimacy of power. --- libertarian paternalism. --- limited government. --- limited liability. --- market interactions. --- markets. --- modern paternalism. --- objective reality. --- paternalism. --- paternalistic governments. --- paternalistic intervention. --- paternalistic interventions. --- paternalistic policies. --- paternalistic state. --- penalties. --- policy prescriptions. --- political economy critique. --- political institutions. --- population distribution. --- post-utilitarian paradigm. --- post-utilitarianism. --- price restrictions. --- psychological phenomena. --- public policy. --- rational phenomena. --- responsibility transfer. --- revealed preferences. --- self-consciousness. --- self-reported happiness. --- sin tax. --- social contract. --- social engineer. --- social planner. --- social preferences. --- social sciences. --- state involvement. --- statistics. --- transactions. --- unique self. --- unitary individual. --- utilitarian social policy. --- utilitarian state. --- utilitarianism. --- utility. --- voluntary transactions. --- welfare.