Voluntary Contributions Research Articles

Reciprocity or Community? Different Cultural Pathways to Cooperation and Welfare

We compare efficiency-enhancing cooperation and its underlying motives in Iceland and the US. The two countries are distinct along all measures of national culture known to us. They are however both developed democracies with similar GDP/capita (PPP adjusted). These similarities make it possible to hold constant aspects of culture related to wealth and institutions. In an experimental Voluntary Contribution Mechanism (VCM), we prime the participants with different social foci, emphasizing either their directly cooperating team or their wider social unit. With a team focus, cooperation levels do not differ between the two cultures, but this superficial similarity masks deep-seated differences: When the focus is on the wider social unit cooperation increases in Iceland and declines in the US. Both when the contribution levels are the same and when they differ, members of the two cultures differ in their motives to cooperate: Icelanders tend to cooperate unconditionally, and US subjects conditionally with a strong emphasis on reciprocity. Our findings indicate that different cultures can achieve similar economic and societal performance through different cultural norms and suggest that cooperation should be encouraged through culturally tailored persuasion tactics.

Flexibly funding WHO? An analysis of its donors’ voluntary contributions

IntroductionSince the 1970s, voluntary contributions have become an increasingly important component of WHO’s budget. As voluntary contributions tend to be earmarked for donor-specified programmes and projects, there are concerns that...

Kant and Lindahl*

AbstractIn 1896 and 1919, respectively, Wicksell and Lindahl analyzed the public provision of public goods through parliamentary negotiation. Later, Roemer applied Kant's 1785 imperatives to the private provision of public goods by voluntary contributions. Our focal equilibrium notions are the balanced linear cost‐share equilibrium for the Wicksell–Lindahl approach and the multiplicative Kantian equilibrium in the Kant–Roemer modeling. These turn out to be fundamentally equivalent, being defined by the same individual optimization problem. These notions fit well with the idea that technology is publicly owned, but we also extend them to cover private‐ownership economies with exogenously given profit shares. We show that the equivalence between the Wicksell–Lindahl and Kant–Roemer notions carries over to them.

Crowdsourced employer branding: an analysis from the platform glassdoor

Purpose: The present study aims to evaluate the aspects of organizational climate and culture from the voluntary contributions published in the Crowdsourced Employer Branding Glassdoor. Design/methodology: Methodologically, this is an applied, descriptive longitudinal retrospective research, with a quantitative and qualitative approach to data, whose collection took place by means of a technical survey procedure with interpretative analysis of Glassdoor users' statements. The sample was composed of 5 companies from the technological sector located in the city of Florianópolis-SC. Findings: The study investigates the organizational culture from the observations obtained on Glassdoor, verify the difference in averages between Culture and General Note of the companies observed, the perception of climate from the manifestations in favor or against the practices of the organization and relate the culture and organizational climate of the sample studied. Originality/value: Theoretically, the study points out the possibilities of evaluating the organizational climate and culture through Crowdsourced Employer Branding platforms and that the "culture" factor is a determining factor for the positive or negative evaluation of a company. In relation to practical contributions, it can be seen that the study contributes to the decision of candidates about which companies to work for. In addition, it brings the importance of companies developing a good culture and maintaining a good organizational climate. Considering that this information is accessible to people on the internet.

Identifying heterogeneity using recursive partitioning: evidence from SMS nudges encouraging voluntary retirement savings in Mexico.

Individuals regularly struggle to save for retirement. Using a large-scale field experiment ( ) in Mexico, we test the effectiveness of several behavioral interventions relative to existing policy and each other geared toward improving voluntary retirement savings contributions. We find that an intervention framing savings as a way to secure one's family future significantly improves contribution rates. We leverage recursive partitioning techniques and identify that the overall positive treatment effect masks subpopulations where the treatment is even more effective and other groups where the treatment has a significant negative effect, decreasing contribution rates. Accounting for this variation is significant for theoretical and policy development as well as firm profitability. Our work also provides a methodological framework for how to better design, scale, and deploy behavioral interventions to maximize their effectiveness.

Wealth and risk heterogeneity effects in community‐based wildlife management: Experimental evidence

Community-based conservation is a widely adopted wildlife governance approach, but questions remain about the conditions under which this form of wildlife governance achieves success. Particularly, participating communities are often marked by considerable wealth and risk heterogeneities that are driven by differences in livestock or agricultural holdings and varying exposure to wildlife depredation of those holdings. The effect of these types of heterogeneity on successful conservation collective action is understudied, particularly in the case of risk heterogeneity. This lacuna limits policymakers' ability to effectively match the design of community-based programs to their particular settings. Using established behavioural experimental techniques, we model the incentive structures underlying community-based wildlife conservation where actors differ in wealth and exposure to human–wildlife conflict. We conduct a modified binary linear voluntary contribution mechanism game, in which we vary subject endowments and risk of incurring a loss when participating in collective action and we find that the type of heterogeneity matters to collective action success. On their own, the presence of either economic or risk heterogeneities (but not both) dampen cooperation compared with homogeneous groups, as do ‘balanced’ distributions of both heterogeneities (where individuals facing high risk levels receive high endowments and vice versa). However, groups with ‘unbalanced’ heterogeneities (where those facing high risk levels receive low endowments and vice versa) demonstrate cooperation at similar levels to that of homogeneous groups. At the individual level, risk drives cooperative behaviour, although its impact is influenced by relative wealth levels when both forms of heterogeneity are present. These findings suggest the need for a more in-depth look at the role and interaction of risk and wealth heterogeneities in conservation management. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Should a benevolent government provide public goods if it cannot commit?

AbstractI compare two different systems of provision of binary public goods: a centralized system, operated by a benevolent government that has limited commitment power; and a decentralized system, based on voluntary contributions, where agents can communicate but cannot write contracts. I show that any ex‐post individually rational allocation that is implementable by the centralized system is also implementable by the decentralized system. This suggests that when the public good provision problem is merely an informational one, as is the case with binary public goods, a decentralized system may perform better.

Can Immigration Explain Why Ethnic Diversity is Negatively Associated with Common Property Management?

A persistent question for social scientists is the extent to which societal levels of ethnic diversity, and rates of immigration, make collective action difficult to achieve (or maintain). Here I examine whether immigration can explain why ethnic diversity is negatively associated with collective action. The focus is on two aspects of collective action for common property management (that is, voluntary contributions to toilet construction and voluntary compliance with forestry regulations) among Ugandan communities whose levels of ethnic diversity and rates of immigration vary. Preliminary evidence suggests that communities with lower rates of immigration are more supportive of common property management, irrespective of their levels of ethnic diversity. By implication, socio-political impediments to collective action may have less to do with the stock of demographic diversity than the flow rate of demographic change.

The geography of giving: Nonprofit philanthropy, public parks and land conservation in the United States

AbstractFaced with budget cutbacks, state and local governments struggle to adequately fund public parks and support land conservation. “Support nonprofits” are charitable organizations soliciting voluntary contributions of money, property, and service to protect parks and natural systems (Gazley, 2015). From 2000 to 2015, the number of support nonprofits increased by 188% and total nonprofit revenue increased by 263%, outpacing growth in public charities nationwide (NCCS). The rapid growth in support nonprofits prompts key questions about access and equity: Which communities benefit from support nonprofits? Do support nonprofits advocate for public land conservation? Using a novel national dataset pairing large nonprofits with the counties they serve, the article has three key findings: (1) counties in metropolitan areas with well‐educated, liberal residents are more likely to have a support nonprofit fundraising for public land, and (2) there is no correlation between public funding for parks and support nonprofit presence. In addition to philanthropy, (3) counties with support nonprofits are more likely to pass ballot initiatives funding public land conservation. It is imperative that policy‐makers and conservation advocates consider how nonprofit philanthropy maps on to—and augments—existing inequality in access to parks and natural resource conservation.

SHOPEE PAYLATER LOANS REVIEWED OF KHES

The research problems are how to practice Shopee Paylater loans in Padang Sidempuan City and how to review the compilation of Sharia Economic Law on Shopee Paylater loans. religion teaches its people to have the nature of qanaah, not to have the related wasteful nature until learning the money to buy an item that does not get the benefit or necessary. In the compilation of Sharia Economic Law is mentioned qardh loans. In Article 615 KHES related to qardh, the customer may make additional or voluntary contributions to the lender as long as it is not promised in the transaction. The purpose of this study was to determine how the practice of Shopee Pay Later loans in the city of Padang Sidempuan and review based on the compilation of Sharia Economic Law.This research is field research that uses data collection techniques such as observation, interviews, and documentation. Then pick up books related to this research such as law books, journals, government publications, as well as sites or other sources that support this research. The result of this research is that Shopee Paylater can be accessed by all users by registering first. Then the user can directly do checkout by having an installment payment system of 3, 6, or 12 installments with a predetermined interest. The influence of the use of this feature has a consumptive impact on the community to become addicted to shopping or known as Shopaholic. Even the reprimand given by Shopee does not make some people a deterrent to loans. Based on a review of the compilation of Sharia Economic Law Against loans Shopee Paylater on e-commerce shows that the loan or qardh is not in accordance with article 609 KHES because in the compilation of Sharia Economic Law the borrower may provide additional payments or voluntary donations to the lender, but not agreed upon in the transaction.

Comparison of the voluntary contribution and Pareto-efficient mechanisms under voluntary participation

Comparison of the voluntary contribution and Pareto-efficient mechanisms under voluntary participation

Using gamification to increase map data production during humanitarian volunteered geographic information (VGI) campaigns

ABSTRACT Volunteered geographic information (VGI) offers a solution to inequalities in authoritative map data that can limit our response to humanitarian crises. However, sustaining voluntary contributions of map data can be difficult and hybrid machine learning-VGI (ML-VGI) workflows developed to encourage sustained volunteer contributions have been demonstrated to be insufficient. Gamification can be used to encourage volunteers to map for longer, however evaluations of gamification to increase humanitarian mapping contributions are rare. Here we develop a gamified humanitarian ML-VGI mapping platform (“Map Safari”) and evaluate the use of game elements to encourage sustained volunteer contributions without reducing contribution quality. Our results suggest that gamification makes mapping more fun, particularly for first time mappers, without degrading map data quality. Competition is demonstrated to be important for encouraging enjoyment of game elements and increasing map data contributions. Future gamified mapping platforms should emphasize competition and ensure there are enough game elements to make platform use feel game-like. This research demonstrates that gamification can be used to encourage continued voluntary contributions of map data thereby increasing the amount of map data available to humanitarian organizations.

Two characterizations of cost share equilibria

We consider pure exchange economies with a finite number of private goods and the choice of non-Samuelsonian public goods. For this type of economies, [5] proposed the notion of cost share equilibrium with individual payments for public goods varying according to individual benefits. This situation arises naturally when a level of provision is interpreted as a whole configuration of public policies or when cost share functions are interpreted as voluntary contributions rather than predetermined tax systems (see [31]). We establish the equivalence of cost share equilibria with cooperative and non-cooperative game-theoretic solutions: 1. we characterize cost share equilibria as those allocations which cannot be improved upon by society; 2. we characterize cost share equilibria as the Nash equilibria of a game with two players. The cooperative solutions analyzed in the paper are defined via a contribution scheme which captures the fraction of the total cost of collective goods that each coalition of agents is expected to cover.

Monitoring Active Patient Participation During Robotic Rehabilitation: Comparison Between a Robot-Based Metric and an EMG-Based Metric.

While rehabilitation robots present a much-needed solution to improving early mobilization therapy in demanding clinical settings, they also present new challenges and opportunities in patient monitoring. Aside from the fundamental challenge of quantifying a patient's voluntary contribution during robot-led therapy motion, many sensors cannot be used in clinical settings due to time and space limitations. In this paper, we present and compare two metrics for monitoring a patient's active participation in the motion. The two metrics, each derived from first principles, have the same biomechanical interpretability, i.e., active work by the patient during the robotic mobilization therapy, but are calculated in two different spaces (Cartesian vs. muscle space). Furthermore, the sensors used to quantify these two metrics are fully independent from each other and the associated measurements are unrelated. Specifically, the robot-based work metric utilizes robot-integrated force sensors, while the EMG-based work metric requires electrophysiological sensors. We then apply the two metrics to therapy performed using a clinically certified, commercially available robotic system and compare them against the specific instructions given to the healthy subjects as well as against each other. Both metric outputs qualitatively match the expected behavior of the healthy subjects. Additionally, strong correlations (median [Formula: see text]) are shown between the two metrics, not only for healthy subjects (n = 12) but also for patients (n = 2), providing solid evidence for their validity and translatability. Importantly, the robot-based work metric does not rely on any sensors outside of those integrated into the robot, thus making it ideal for application in clinical settings.

Tax resistance and voluntary contributions in the Middle Roman Republic

Tax resistance and voluntary contributions in the Middle Roman Republic

Charity activities in Vietnam – Issues and recommendations

Charity is always encouraged all over the world. This humanitarian behavior shows the human value between people and helps society become better, which is in line with the spirit of the thousands of generations of Vietnamese people: “lá lành dùm lá rách - the leaves protect the tattered ones”. However, besides the positive aspects achieved so far, this activity in recent years has shown many negative behaviors that distort the inherent good nature of charity activities. The violations of the law in charity activities stem from many different reasons, such as the fact that legal system governing charity in Vietnam is still incomplete and ineffective. The Vietnamese government has not yet enacted a law on charitable organizations; charity activities are mainly governed by sub-law documents such as government decrees (Decree No. 93/2021/ND-CP issued on October 27, 2021, on mobilizing, receiving, distributing, and using voluntary contributions to support overcoming difficulties caused by natural disasters, epidemics, and incidents; support patients with critical illnesses). Besides, the issue of social consciousness and the impacts of the economic and social context are also causes leading to many inadequacies in charity. In particular, during the period of the COVID -19 epidemic and after, many people took advantage of the difficult situation to illegally earn money from charity activities. The consequences of these illegal actions have affected the community's trust in philanthropists and charitable organizations. In this article, the authors are going to focus on analyzing the legal regulations on charity activities in Vietnam and some of the current issues that have taken place in the last 5 years. On the basis of theoretical analysis, situation analysis, and comparison with legal regulations in some countries around the world (such as Canada and Germany), this article will offer some solutions to strengthen legal regulations and improve their effective control over philanthropy in Vietnam.

Using Milestones as a Source of Feedback in Teamwork: Insights from a Dynamic Voluntary Contribution Mechanism

Using Milestones as a Source of Feedback in Teamwork: Insights from a Dynamic Voluntary Contribution Mechanism

EDUCATION FUNDING IN UKRAINE FROM THE BUDGETS OF DIFFERENT LEVELS DURING THE WAR

As a result of russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine's education sector suffered serious destruction and losses. The purpose of the article is to study the features of financing Ukrainian education from budgets of different levels in the context of war. To achieve this goal, the following tasks have been set: to analyze the value of destroyed and damaged assets of the education and science sector; to systematize and compare indicators of education expenditures from budgets of different levels in 2020–2022; to consider certain aspects of financing security and ensuring access to education for participants in the educational process. The following research methods were used in the study: systematization, comparison, horizontal and vertical analysis. It is indicated that the number of destroyed and damaged educational facilities reached 3,170, with a total estimated damage of almost 9 billion USD. Higher, secondary and preschool education institutions suffered the greatest losses. It is estimated that in 2022, compared to 2021, expenditures on education from the State Budget of Ukraine decreased by 8,35%, and from local budgets – by 6,76%. The data shows that in 2020–2022, the largest share of state budget expenditures on education was occupied by professional pre-higher and higher education (over 80%); in local budget expenditures – general secondary education (over 60%) and preschool education (over 17%). The following recommendations for educational institutions were formulated: to increase the supply of paid educational and research services; to increase the production of competitive products; to actively apply for grants from domestic and international organizations; to encourage benefactors to make voluntary contributions, etc. State and local authorities are recommended to pay special attention to financing the education sector.

Uticaj CSR aktivnosti na stavove korisnika usluga osiguravajućih kompanija pri kupovini usluga osiguranja

Corporate Social Responsibility implies a company's independent determination to direct its activities towards social welfare in the community in which it runs its business operations. Insurance companies, as institutional investors, contribute significantly to the development of the entire economy on one hand, while on the other, through socially responsible business, they support important projects for development of the entire community. In insurance sector, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is deemed a long-term investment, because a company makes voluntary contributions to support the community, thereby directly strengthening its position on the market. The paper presented opinions of five categories of insurance service users on CSR of insurance companies. Focus was on the extent to which insurance service users believed that insurance companies helped development of a local and wider community, whether they perceived their insurance company as a socially responsible company and whether they considered its socially responsible behaviour before choosing it. Results showed the necessity of promoting socially responsible activities of insurance companies in order to make the target group more aware of what their chosen insurance company actively undertook in the relevant field.

Crowd-technologies in the governance system under conditions of military law in Ukraine

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of using crowd technologies in public institutions under conditions of military law in Ukraine. An analysis is made of the definition of crowd technologies in domestic and foreign literature. Criteria and indicators of crowd technologies are determined, including: a common goal as a factor of participants’ identity; absence of legal contracts and agreements; operational horizontal communication; a small amount of resources spent; non-financial incentives and motivation for attracting new participants; generation of decisions and ideas, obtaining new knowledge; effective implementation on the Internet; unlimited number of participants. The systematic structure of crowd technological projects and the advantages of crowd technologies in public administration compared to traditional administrative levers are systematized. An overview of crowd technology typologies at the level of governance institutions is provided, including their time of implementation, initiator status, and more. The reasons for the rapid development of crowd technologies in the conditions of a state of war have been identified, including: a high level of civic activity and responsibility of the population due to the efforts to counter Russian aggression; a high degree of development of civil society, especially the volunteer sector in the period preceding the full-scale Russian invasion; a culture of openness cultivated by the authorities following the Revolution of Dignity in 2014; a high level of trust in the military organization of the state and the overall legitimacy of the government, which became the center of unity for society; the presence of an information and network society actively introduced in Ukraine as a result of active policies of decentralization and digitization in previous years; a high level of development of the Internet and information and communication technologies, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The peculiarities and examples of the application of crowd technologies in conditions of martial law in Ukraine have been investigated. Various types of crowdfunding, based on voluntary contributions, including crowdsourcing, crowddonating, crowdlending, and crowdinvesting, are classified as financial crowd technologies. Crowdstaffing, crowdrecruiting, crowdtraining, crowdhunting, and crowdassessment are classified as personnel crowd technologies responsible for personnel recruitment. The focus is on crowd technologies that optimize the activities of public authorities and organizations and implement innovations. The following are studied: crowdmarketing, crowdcomputing, crowdstorming, crowdforesight, crowdtesting, crowdcrowdcreation, crowdwiki, crowdactive, crowdfixing, crowdsearching, crowdmapping, crowdsolving, and crowdvoting. Conditions and recommendations for using the opportunities of crowd technologies in the governance system, including in conditions of martial law, are identified, including decentralization of governance, e-governance, and informatization. The conditions and recommendations for utilizing the potential of crowd technologies in the governance system have been identified, including in the context of martial law.