Misalignment Of Preferences Research Articles

Preference for Student Activity over Teacher Guidance: Effects of Task-Related Knowledge and Learner or Instructor Roles

During interactions within educational settings, individuals may find themselves in the position of a learner or an instructor. This study examined how individuals change their perceptions of task difficulty and their preferences for educational approaches oriented toward teacher guidance and student activity based on whether they possess task-related knowledge and whether they are in a learner or an instructor role. University students enrolled in teacher education programs were divided into four groups based on two variables: knowledge (with or without) and role (learner or instructor). Study 1 (N = 359) utilized a between-participants design, whereas Study 2 (N = 141) employed a mixed design, with role as a between-participants variable and knowledge as a within-participants variable. Participants with task-related knowledge perceived a mathematical problem to be less difficult and exhibited a stronger preference for student activity, and participants in the instructor role showed a stronger preference for student activity. These results suggest that individuals tend to distance themselves from teaching behaviors when they have task-related knowledge and are in an instructor position, thus highlighting the potential misalignment of preferences between learners who lack knowledge and more knowledgeable instructors.

An inexpert expert

ABSTRACT We explore strategic information transmission when there is noise at the observation stage, when an expert observes signals, before he advises a policymaker. That is, the expert might be inexpert. We account for the fact that his signals might be totally uninformative, which is commonly known by players. We find that this inexpertise translates into a greater preference misalignment between players and that this yields a less informative equilibrium. We show that our results follow from the fact that the strategic effect of noise – the welfare change exclusive due to changes in the equilibrium partition – is always negative. Numerical simulations show that noise might be beneficial if the policymaker openly disagrees about noise chances. This makes the point that whether noise is beneficial or not crucially depends on how early in the game it arises, and also whether noise chances are commonly known by players or not.

Sorting expertise

We analyze the optimal sorting of experts who differ in their ability to acquire information, into production teams. Once a team is formed, experts individually acquire information about the joint project, communicate the information they acquired, and then engage in team production. Misalignment of preferences at the production stage creates incentives for belief manipulation at the communication stage. We show that the cost associated with misaligned incentives is minimized if experts of similar abilities are placed in the same team. Consequently, surplus maximization may lead to non-diversified teams, even if in the absence of misaligned incentives optimal sorting is negative assortative. Thus, our analysis provides a novel rationale for creation of non-diversified teams of experts.

Extended Producer Responsibility for Pharmaceuticals

Problem definition: We investigate the effectiveness of different extended producer responsibility (EPR) implementation models for pharmaceuticals. In particular, we study two viable and prevalent models: (1) source reduction (SR), where a form of fee on sale is imposed on producers, and (2) end-of-pipe control (EC), where producers are made responsible for the collection of unused pharmaceuticals. Academic/practical relevance: The existing literature on EPR implementation models has focused primarily on nonconsumable products (e.g., electronics), whereas there is limited research on the effectiveness of different EPR implementation models for pharmaceuticals used in practice. We aim to fill this gap in this study. Methodology: We develop a game-theoretic model to characterize the equilibrium strategies of different stakeholders under both the SR and EC models and compare the resulting producer profit, environmental/social impact, and total welfare. Results: In contrast to the nonconsumable contexts where the SR model is shown to maximize total welfare, the EC model leads to a higher total welfare for certain categories of pharmaceuticals because of its effectiveness in eliminating overprescription. Moreover, we characterize conditions under which stakeholder (e.g., producer, environmental/social advocacy groups) preferences toward EPR implementation model choices are (mis-)aligned. We further show that limiting the social planner’s budget surplus under SR can eliminate the preference misalignment but leads to a loss of total welfare. Managerial implications: (1) Policymakers should be cautious about directly applying preferred EPR models from other product categories to the pharmaceutical setting. (2) The EC model maximizes the objectives of all stakeholders for a salient category of pharmaceuticals with high health benefits, high collection costs, and high environmental/social costs. (3) Policymakers should give thought to differentiating EPR implementation models across pharmaceutical categories. (4) It is important to carefully quantify the health impact of the pharmaceuticals and the operational cost parameters to inform policymaking.

Form of Preference Misalignment Linked to State-pooling Structure in Bayesian Persuasion

Form of Preference Misalignment Linked to State-pooling Structure in Bayesian Persuasion

Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa, Kim Dionne

Reviewed by: Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa by Kim Yi. Dionne Lauren M. MacLean BOOK REVIEW of Dionne, Kim Yi. 2017. Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. 212 pp. $89.98 (cloth), $20.52 (paper). In Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa (2017), Kim Yi Dionne makes the case that the global response to HIV/AIDS in Africa has been a failure. This claim is contentious and controversial, especially given the billions of dollars spent by major multilateral and bilateral donors over the past several decades and trends that suggest that prevalence rates have declined over time. Dionne uses a couple of examples of global interventions that have failed in implementation in Botswana and Mozambique to motivate the book’s core puzzle. Where other authors, such as Lieberman (2009), have analyzed cross-national variation in government response to the crisis, Dionne’s contribution is her effort to unpack the process of implementation on the ground. This is not an easy task, but Dionne does it effectively by focusing on the dynamics within one country case over time. After providing a brief summary of the disease dynamics in the global and African contexts, she concentrates on Malawi, where international funds constitute 99 percent of the response to the disease. Her analysis is based on impressive fieldwork in three districts in each of the three administrative regions of Malawi between 2006 and 2010. Her data collection was part of a large, NIH-funded study on citizen perceptions and behaviors, and it included a survey of village headmen. [End Page 144] Drawing on a principal–agent theoretical framework, Dionne argues that these AIDS response efforts have failed because of problems of adverse selection and preference misalignment. She backs up this argument, about the disconnections between international donors and Malawians, with a wealth of quantitative survey data from citizens and original interview data from village headmen and other key informants. She convincingly shows how Malawians do not identify HIV/AIDS as their top priority. Her findings also highlight how survey question wording profoundly influences the answers elicited and that HIV/AIDS services are not necessarily perceived as a public good for all, but as an excludable good. In the chapter on village headmen, Dionne then further probes how village leaders may be influenced by their constituents and mediate between citizen and global perspectives. The most compelling theme that runs throughout the book is her call for greater attention to African perspectives and citizen viewpoints on international development policies. This book will interest scholars in political science, public policy, public administration, development studies, public health, sociology, and anthropology. Its chapters provide an excellent and provocative introduction to the challenges and shortfalls of the AIDS response that would be suitable for undergraduate or graduate classes. The book is very much framed in terms of African politics, but it has important insights that would be relevant for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers working in other regions of the developing world. For example, the book highlights the importance of traditional leadership at the local level in brokering between donors and their constituents. The questions about principal–agent problems in the implementation of international development policy are much broader and would be valuable for scholars studying Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Dionne leaves room for further exploration of the theoretical and policy implications of her findings, which have the potential to be far reaching. Lauren M. MacLean Indiana University Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University

Optimal management of transfers: An odd paradox

This paper considers the case of transfers when there exists a serious preference misalignment between the transfer-maker and the beneficiary. The former wants to reduce the resulting outcome discrepancy through monitoring the use of the transfer and imposing sanctions if the discrepancy proves too large. This external discipline combines with the ’internal discipline’ of the beneficiary, that is his/her willingness and ability to align with the transfer-maker's objective. Besides the fact that costs of monitoring and sanctioning are explicitly taken into account, an original feature of our model specification is that the two types of discipline are made comparable: they can be summed up to obtain an aggregate discipline. We show that, paradoxically, an (exogenous) improvement of internal discipline may be over-compensated by a fall of external discipline. Total discipline thus decreases and the discrepancy between the actual and the intended uses of the transfer increases instead of decreasing. Another consequence is that the relationship between internal and total disciplines may be non-monotonic. These results generalize to alternative specifications of the basic model.

Strategic corporate social responsibility by a multinational firm

AbstractThis paper investigates the determinants of a responsible multinational firm's decision to enter in a foreign country either through exports or through foreign direct investment (FDI), as well as the relevant market and societal outcomes. We find that coroporate social responsibility (CSR) investments are higher under FDI than under exports. The multinational firm's incentives to serve the foreign country through FDI are increasing in the average consumer's valuation for CSR and in the intensity of the foreign country's market competition, but only if the average consumer's valuation for CSR in this country is sufficiently high. These incentives are mitigated by the multinational firm's liability in this country under exports. We also find that there is misalignment of preferences between the stakeholders of the two countries over the multinational firm's mode of entry in the foreign country.

Allowing firms to choose between separate accounting and formula apportionment taxation

This paper analyzes the effect on firm behavior and national tax revenues of allowing multinational firms to choose to be taxed under separate accounting rules or an apportionment formula. Separate accounting always generates more profitable output and conditional labor demand distortions from tax differentials while either method can generate a more profitable income-shifting distortion. Both low-cost and high-cost firms can prefer separate accounting while medium-cost firms prefer formula apportionment. With symmetric countries, a firm's preferred method generates greater tax revenues in the country with the lower tax rate. With asymmetric countries, a firm's preferred method need no longer generate greater tax revenues in the lower-tax-rate country due to the fact that countries and firms now value tax base distortions differently. With this misalignment of preferences, some firms can choose the preferred method of both countries at fixed tax rates.

Persuasion Under Higher-Order Uncertainty

We study a general model of persuasion games under higher-order uncertainty about the sender's knowledge of an uncertain state variable. Unlike situations where such uncertainty is absent, we show that higher-order uncertainty eliminates truth-telling as an equilibrium. Instead, equilibrium consists of a convex interval of states where either disclosure or complete non-disclosure occurs, depending on the relative slopes of the ideal action lines of the sender and receiver. When choosing between senders differing in both expertise and preference alignment, we offer conditions where expertise dominates regardless of the degree of preference misalignment. Absent higher-order uncertainty, we provide an algorithm for constructing a truthful equilibrium, as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for equilibrium uniqueness.

Information, Communication, and Preference (Mis)Alignment in Organizations

As a decision maker, an organization's principal relies on workers to acquire costly information and on division managers to summarize it. This arrangement creates two agency problems: workers and managers have incentives to underprovide and to manipulate information, respectively. A degree of preference misalignment among the actors mitigates both problems simultaneously, to the principal's benefit. In particular, when reporting to a manager that holds a moderately opposing view, a worker will be motivated to acquire precise information to persuade the manager. Given sufficiently precise information, the manager's preferences coincide with the principal's, so truthful reporting becomes optimal for the manager.

Communication compatible voting rules

We reassess the possibility of full information pooling in a Condorcet jury environment featuring heterogeneous and privately known preference types. We find that in general, with uncorrelated preference types, only very limited heterogeneity is compatible with full pooling. We provide a sufficient condition, based on a simple measure of preference misalignment, under which the set of voting rules compatible with full pooling is at most a singleton. As a caveat to any simplistic conclusions, we identify a case in which an increase in heterogeneity (i.e. polarization) systematically generates the possibility of full pooling. Increased jury size, in contrast, is shown to always render full pooling more difficult.

Coordination internationale et sortie de crise : quel rôle pour le G20 ?

Le G20 a joue un role cle dans la coordination internationale des politiques economiques, pendant la premiere partie de la crise. D’une part, l’ampleur de la crise a aligne les preferences des grandes economies, d’autre part, la communaute internationale a rapidement du trouver une instance de cooperation adaptee dont le mode de fonctionnement par consensus, la couverture geographique etendue aux grands emergents et le niveau le plus eleve de representation etaient adaptes aux enjeux. Dans la phase de sortie de crise et en regime de croisiere, les conditions de la cooperation internationale sont moins favorables, car les fortes divergences structurelles au sein du G20 engendrent mecaniquement un desalignement des preferences. En outre, sequelle de la crise, les marges de manœuvre de la politique economique, singulierement de la politique budgetaire, sont aussi tres differentes. Pour autant, cet embryon de coordination internationale engendre par la crise a des raisons de survivre car (1) il y a une demande des marches mais aussi des populations, (2) l’approche holistique adoptee par le G20, associant coordination macroeconomique, renforcement du systeme monetaire international et reforme de la regulation financiere peut faciliter les compromis globaux et (3) la formalisation de la coordination des politiques economiques au sein du G20 (« cadre pour la croissance ») en est un facteur de perennisation. Classification JEL : F33, F42, F55.

Do What Consumers Say Matter? The Misalignment of Preferences with Unconstrained Ethical Intentions

Nearly all studies of consumers’ willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present article we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of “intention to purchase” and estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too “noisy” to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent.

Do What Consumers Say Matter? The Misalignment of Preferences with Unconstrained Ethical Intentions

Nearly all studies of consumers willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present paper we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of intention to purchase and estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too noisy to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent.

Residential segregation and preference misalignment

This paper studies the role of disparities in neighborhood composition preferences in perpetuating residential segregation. Evidence from the Multi-city study of urban inequality (MCSUI) suggests that it would be impossible to simultaneously sort White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic households into neighborhoods that match their stated ideal. Simulations suggest that rearranging blocks in US metropolitan areas to match preferences stated by Black MCSUI respondents would involve moving 36% of the Black population to a block with a lower concentration of Black neighbors and 6% of the Black population to a block with a higher concentration of Black neighbors.