Band 42, Heft 6

Game theoretical analysis of the one-shot prisoner’s dilemma (PD) predicts a reduction of cooperation due to both aggressive and defensive motives regardless of whether gains or losses are at stake. Loss aversion among the participants, in contrast, suggests that looming losses will foster cooperation. As a consequence, cooperation should be higher in a negative PD in the loss domain than in an equivalent positive PD in the gain domain. Scenarios and dilemma situations for which respective differences should be significant are ubiquitous (e.g. environmental problems, wars). Empirical evidence from laboratory experiments with 270 students, however, indicates no differences in cooperation rates between gain and loss domains.

High-cost and low-cost situations have been frequently discussed in the literature whereby it is especially the so-called low-cost hypothesis which has been empirically explored in various studies on pro-social and pro-environmental behavior. The study at hand uses a sample of Indonesian respondents who, due to very low income, are subject to tight economic constraints. We make use of the ultimatum game from experimental economics and find clear evidence for the existence of high-cost situations, i. e. situations in which the respondents are forced to act in line with traditional rational choice theory. Moreover, our experimental methodology allows us to estimate separately the effects of low income (a constraint) and size of the stake (an incentive) as different components of situational pressure on the behavior of responders and to test for non-linearities in the effects.

This paper examines whether a heterogeneous composition of the workforce affects the performance of organizations. Conflict theoretical arguments speak for a negative impact; resource-oriented approaches see a positive effect of diversity. These considerations are examined for cultural and age diversity with data from the IAB (Institute for Employment Research) Establishment Panel and the Establishment History Panel. Furthermore, the analyses are differentiated according to firm size. We examine diversity within the entire workforce as well as the diversity among (highly) skilled workers. For cultural diversity, positive and negative effects are found which differ across both firm-size categories and the diversity of certain workforce groups. Negative productivity effects seem to be restricted to small firms, while positive effects can be found for all firms. For large establishments, the benefits of diversity among the (highly) qualified employees are somewhat stronger. In contrast, there are no significant effects of age diversity on the productivity of German firms.

Many features of recent wars can be understood along the lines of a theory of society and institutional differentiation. Armed conflicts and armed forces partake in the trend toward the more pronounced structural differentiation and functional specification observable in various institutional domains, here most relevantly in the domain of politics. Notwithstanding the delimited structural location of wars, war personnel can be recruited from an entire populace according to the universalistic principles of modern society; but soldiers and other combatants will often hold roles in further institutional contexts as well, which gives rise to typical problems of the multiple inclusion and mutual (in)compatibility of roles. Irregular combatants can be seen to pursue an autonomous, non-governmental, “grassroots” inclusion in war. Last but not least, the issues of civilian casualties and the wide-spread public aversion to war can be interpreted according to the double theorem of inclusion and institutional differentiation.