José Antonio Noguera

How much would you like to pay? Trust, reciprocity and prosocial motivations in El trato:

Prosocial motivations and reciprocity are becoming increasingly important in social-science research. While laboratory experiments have challenged the assumption of universal selfishness, the external validity of these results has not been sufficiently tested in natural settings. In this article we examine the role of prosocial motivations and reciprocity in a Pay What You Want (PWYW) sales strategy, in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. This article empirically analyses the only PWYW example in Spain to date: the El trato (‘The deal’) campaign launched by the travel company Atrápalo, which offered different holiday packages under PWYW conditions in July 2009. Our analysis shows that, although the majority of the customers did not behave in a purely self-interested manner, they nonetheless did so in a much higher proportion than observed in similar studies. We present different hypotheses about the mechanisms that may explain these findings. Specifically, we highlight the role of two plausible explanations: the framing of the campaign and the attribution of ‘hidden’ preferences to Atrápalo by its customers, which undermined the interpretation of El trato as a trust game.

A Plea for the Use of Laboratory Experiments in Basic Income Research

We agree with the other participants in this debate that an experimental approach makes a significant contribution to our understanding of universal basic income (UBI) schemes, as there is a limit to what we can learn from surveys, simulations or studying existing welfare policies that only marginally resemble a UBI. However, we differ from others advocating the use of experiments in terms of the specific design of a UBI experiment. In particular, we want to urge a note of caution against conducting large-scale social or field experiments (along the lines of the famous negative income tax (NIT) experiments carried out in the US and Canada in the 1970s) advanced in recent years by Loek Groot (2004; 2006), Rafael Pinilla (2006), and many others. We think there are two distinct, if related, reasons why one might take a sceptical attitude towards field experiments in this particular context. First, field

On the Political Feasibility of Universal Basic Income: An Analytic Framework

For much of the last two decades, debate around the proposal of a universal basic income (BI) centered on arguing the ethical and economic case for instituting a policy that grants each adult citizen a guaranteed income as a right, without a means test or work requirement (Van Parijs 1992, 1995; Dowding et al. 2003; Standing 2005; Widerquist et al. 2005; Ackerman et al. 2006). The question of how to bring about such a policy—the question of political feasibility—has only recently gained traction amongst BI advocates. Leaving aside some notable exceptions, much work remains to be done to further our understanding of the challenges faced by BI advocates and the strategies available to overcome these. In this chapter, we aim to contribute to this enterprise by outlining an analytical framework to think about the political feasibility of BI in a more systematic manner.

Exploring Tax Compliance: An Agent-Based Simulation.

This paper is just a concept presentation to be discussed at the ECMS12, based on preliminary work of a research project funded by the Spanish Institute for Fiscal Studies (Ministry of Economy). This project aims to build an agent-based model (ABM) for the simulation of tax compliance and tax evasion behaviour, and to calibrate it empirically in order to generate some known patterns of tax behaviour among Spanish taxpayers. Here we present the state of the development for the formal model and our present ideas about the implementation methodology, with focus on a new algorithm -based in four different decisional mechanismsso that it includes not just the usual expected utility optimization, but also other sociologically relevant features like social network structure, social influence, decisional heuristics, biases in the perception of the tax system, and heterogeneity of tax motivations and tax morale among the agents. The methodological discussion about this kind of “modularity” in implementing a decisional engine could be completed in Koblenz with some preliminary results based on experimentation with the initial parameters and decisional modules.

Some prospects for a Basic Income scheme in Spain

This article discusses the prospects of a Basic Income scheme in the context of the Spanish welfare state. After reviewing the relationship between Basic Income and different welfare regimes, and the main features of Spanish welfare policy, three main issues are adressed: first, the specific problems of financing a Basic Income in Spain; second, the problem of the eventual transition from contributory benefits to a Basic Income scheme; and third, some distributive effects of the reform. It is argued that, since the main social benefits in Spain are contributory, the second problem appears as a key for the future of the proposal.

Field evidence of social influence in the expression of political preferences: the case of secessionists flags in Barcelona.

Models of social influence have explored the dynamics of social contagion, imitation, and diffusion of different types of traits, opinions, and conducts. However, few behavioral data indicating social influence dynamics have been obtained from direct observation in “natural” social contexts. The present research provides that kind of evidence in the case of the public expression of political preferences in the city of Barcelona, where thousands of citizens supporting the secession of Catalonia from Spain have placed a Catalan flag in their balconies and windows. Here we present two different studies. 1) During July 2013 we registered the number of flags in 26% of the electoral districts in the city of Barcelona. We find that there is a large dispersion in the density of flags in districts with similar density of pro-independence voters. However, by comparing the moving average to the global mean we find that the density of flags tends to be fostered in electoral districts where there is a clear majority of pro-independence vote, while it is inhibited in the opposite cases. We also show that the distribution of flags in the observed districts deviates significantly from that of an equivalent random distribution. 2) During 17 days around Catalonia’s 2013 national holiday we observed the position at balcony resolution of the flags displayed in the facades of a sub-sample of 82 blocks. We compare the ‘clustering index’ of flags on the facades observed each day to thousands of equivalent random distributions. Again we provide evidence that successive hangings of flags are not independent events but that a local influence mechanism is favoring their clustering. We also find that except for the national holiday day the density of flags tends to be fostered in facades located in electoral districts where there is a clear majority of pro-independence vote.

RENTA BÁSICA E INCENTIVOS LABORALES: UNA APROXIMACIÓN DESDE LA TEORÍA DE JUEGOS

This paper discusses the likely impact on job incentives of the introduction of a Citizens’ Basic Income. We try to explore whether this proposal would fail because it would cause a massive retreat from the labour market or, on the contrary, this is not a plausible scenario and therefore the proposal is feasible and sustainable in this respect. To this aim, we use formal game theoretical models, since they have several advantages compared with simple intuitive mental speculation. The paper concludes that, as Basic Income supporters argue, the proposal is feasible and sustainable in the most empirically plausible scenarios.

¿Son los hechos sociales una clase de hechos mentales?: Una crítica materialista a la ontología social de John R. Searle

El presente articulo lleva a cabo un analisis critico de algunos aspectos de la obra de John R. Searle La construccion de la realidad social (1995). Partiendo del acuerdo con Searle sobre la necesidad de abandonar el llamado >, se valora hasta que punto la argumentacion del autor resulta exitosa en ese empeno. A este respecto, se defienden las siguientes tesis: 1) La ontologia social de Searle esta parcialmente lastrada por un inadecuado mentalismo, esto es, por la reduccion de todos los hechos sociales a hechos mentales o representaciones superpuestas a hechos «brutos». 2) El mentalismo de Searle no le aleja lo suficiente de los construccionistas sociales, sino que su desarrollo coherente acaba teniendo consecuencias construccionistas e idealistas, a pesar suyo. 3) Para superar estas limitaciones, se deberia demostrar que hay hechos sociales que no son ni hechos brutos, ni hechos mentales, ni simples combinaciones de ambos; se sostendra que un concepto analiticamente reconstruido de praxis puede ser un buen punto de partida pata desarrollar esta estrategia, que puede ser un paso en la construccion de una ontologia social materialista.