Suchergebnisse

AbstractAfter a period of relative overperformance due to the focus on output indicators in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) burden-sharing debate, we ask whether the shift back to input indicators prior to the Ukraine War meant that the smaller NATO allies have returned to their fringe position as NATO underperformers. According to the deterrence model, smaller allies are induced to free ride to a higher degree than mid-sized allies. Utilizing insights from public choice theory, our analysis demonstrates, first, that there is no support to the claim that the size of NATO member state GDP determines the percentage of GDP spent on defence. Second, selective incentives tend to reduce the incentive for small allies to free ride. The relationship between GDP and the percentage of GDP spent on defence capabilities is therefore conditional upon the net gain of the individual member state. Defence capabilities that are characterized as a public good when we control for exposed borders indicate a higher percentage of GDP spent on defence. Our conclusions show that even though small allies continue to free ride, they do so less than expected due to the existence of selective incentives in the period from 2009-2019.

Shared water has prompted some neighboring countries to form integrated regional institutions and rules. Other neighboring countries have maintained less cooperative policies in managing shared water. When do governments achieve integrated management of regional water? How do they overcome barriers to integrated cooperation? This article contends that the structure of interdependence, not the number of states bordering the water, encourages different international policies. It analyzes original panel data on the agreement histories of seventy-six rivers, lakes, and seas. It also examines the role of selective incentives in promoting mutual water management. Fundamentally, the number of states with access to the water does not determine the fate of water management. Strategies for overcoming divergent preferences can be applied across situations. The key is to provide selective incentives when states are asymmetrically interdependent in using the water, to alter national preferences. Selective incentives are particularly important when few states share the water.

The limited lateral entry and rigid pay structure for U.S. military personnel present challenges in retaining skilled individuals who have attractive options in the civilian labor market. One tool the services use to address this challenge is the Selective Reenlistment Bonus (SRB), which offers eligible personnel with particular skills a substantial cash bonus upon reenlistment. However, the sequential nature of the bonus offer and reenlistment process limits the ability to adjust manpower quickly, raising interest in research that estimates the effect of the SRB on retention. While this literature has acknowledged challenges including potential endogeneity of bonus levels, attrition, and reenlistment eligibility, many studies do not address these concerns adequately. This paper uses a comprehensive panel data set on Air Force enlisted personnel to estimate the effect of the SRB on retention rates. We exploit variation in bonus levels within skill groups, control for civilian labor market conditions, and model reenlistment eligibility to avoid common assumptions that lead to biased impact estimates. We find substantial heterogeneity in the effect of the bonus, with the largest effects on first-term service members and those whose skills have not historically received a substantial bonus. We also find evidence that the bonus affects the timing of reenlistment decisions in addition to their frequency.

A vast array of organizational innovations and changes are transforming US corporations. Large firms have dramatically downsized, refocused, and vertically disaggregated. They increasingly obtain goods and services, pursue complex development efforts, and exploit horizontal synergies without the aid of formal hierarchy. Large firms are also internally disaggregating into smaller, more autonomous units that are treated much like external subcontractors. The authors argue that these organizational innovations share an important underlying commonalty: economic activity is converging toward exchange involving either internal (within-firm) or external (between-firm) networks of small, autonomous production or service units. Small units and small firms have become the basic building block, the molecular units, of these new forms. Further, exchange among the small, autonomous units is commonly a mix of both market-like and hierarchical features. The authors develop a theoretical explanation for these trends. They argue that disaggregation is motivated by the powerful performance incentives that accompany small size. They further argue that disaggregation is facilitated by recent innovations in information technology, organizational design, and performance measurement that permit the selective intervention of market elements in hierarchy and hierarchical elements in markets. The enhanced ability to intervene selectively necessitates a rethinking of traditional assumptions about the discreteness of governance choices. Innovations in organization, measurement, and technology shift decisions about optimal governance from simple market versus hierarchy choices to choices of an optimal mix of hierarchical and market elements. Consequently, managers and scholars must increasingly view organizations as complex webs of governance arrangements rather than as entities with definable boundaries.

People may engage in protest activity either because of collective incentives or selective incentives, or a combination of them. In this study we focus on the selective incentives part of the calculus of political participation, particularly the impact of the social dimension. We hypothesize that people will participate in demonstrations or other forms of protest, to a higher extent if they are afraid of rejection, but only if they feel that they have high social support for their own position. This hypothesis was supported in an online survey experiment where social support was manipulated. Results also revealed that individuals who were highly rejection sensitive were among the most likely to participate even though they did not believe protest activity to be an efficient way to bring about social change. This supports the notion that some individuals tend to engage in protest activity for purely social reasons. However it is still unclear whether these individuals are driven by an approach motivation to establish new social bonds or an avoidance motivation to escape possible social rejection.

The standard explanation of collective action in modern political economy can be outlined as follows: a collective (or public) good is only an incentive for a joint contribution to its provision, if those who benefit from the good at least perceive some influence arising from their contribution, the costs of contributing being otherwise greater than the benefits derived from it; otherwise joint efforts for the provision of the collective good will not ensue. If the good itself does not stimulate collective action, contributions will nevertheless occur when selective incentives become effective. These are benefits arising from contributing and/or costs resulting from no contribution being made.