Abstract Adam Smith is one of the mostly widely read eighteenth-century thinkers, enjoying a scholar reputation among economist, social scientists, political theorists, as well as philosophers. It is frequently believed that the great eighteenth-century Scottish moral philosophy Adam Smith was an extreme dogmatic defender of laissez-faire. It seems clear that Adam Smith has undergone an ideologically based reinterpretation. Smith¡¦s ¡¨invisible hand¡¨ , the most famous metaphor in economics and social science, has been identical with the automatic equilibrating mechanism of the competitive market. Free-market exchanges can unintentionally produce economic well-being, but only under certain specific conditions. Smith¡¦s thesis is that the invisible hand works because, and only when, people operate with restrains self-interest in cooperation with others under the precepts of justice. I found that public spirit, or civic virtue was, for Smith, a vitally important aspect of political economy. I noted that for Smith all constitutions must be judged by the happiness of the people who live under them. Thus, government plays the read role in securing the common good in society.

This dissertation comprises three essays analyzing various economic questions relating to open-source software development. The common thread linking these essays is the long-term sustainability of the open-source software development model, which is largely built on unpaid contributions from individual developers scattered across the world. The first essay develops a theoretical analysis of the market for operating systems as two-sided platforms, modeling the effects of competition and compatibility between a proprietary platform developed by a profit-maximizing firm, and an open platform (a public good developed by volunteers). Looking at the impacts on the proprietary platform firm, and application developer firms and users of both platforms, I find that under certain circumstances, a proprietary platform can find it profitable to become compatible with the open platform. However, it is always optimal in terms of social welfare to have compatibility between platforms. The second essay uses a laboratory experiment to examine how these characteristics and levels of motivations that are heterogeneous across individuals interact to result in sustainable, non-zero levels of contribution to open source software. There is a pronounced “leadership effect,” with subjects playing in the first position invariably contributing more frequently than those in the second position, and so on. Heterogeneity preserves the leadership effect, but increases contributions across the board, and eliminates the pattern of declining individual and total group contributions over time frequently observed in public goods experiments. The third essay studies the micro-foundations of open-source software contributions and provides an empirical examination of developer motivations using survey data. If open-source contributions and education are both signals of ability, then their impact on income is likely to be linked. They may be complements if open source contributions reinforce the signal from education by showing that one stands out from the crowd, or they might be substitutes if open-source development replaces expensive education in honing programming skills by offering more immediate feedback. Using an instrumental variables framework to deal with the endogeneity of the education and contribution choices, I find that leading an open-source project and completing college are complementary practices, so that the signaling and reputation-building aspect dominates.

This thesis explores some theoretical and empirical issues in the voluntary contributions to public good. Chapter I contains a brief motivation and introduction. In chapters II and III, we analyze two non-cooperative methods for either enhancing or mitigating externality-causing activities. Chapter II deals with positive externality in the public good contribution context, and chapter III with negative externality in the pollution abatement context. Chapter IV contains an empirical analysis of charitable donations by the elderly. Chapter II models the so-called ``corporate challenge gift'' used in real world fund-raising, and adopts the concept to voluntary contributions to public goods more generally. We model the process as a sequential game in public good contributions. One of the agents sets a quantity-contingent matching scheme to leverage higher contributions from the other players. Under the assumption that the preferences of agents are public information and the assumption that the scheme setter can commit to the matching plan, we show that the scheme brings efficient levels of total contributions to the public good. Chapter III applies some ideas from a joint work with Professor Robin Boadway and Professor Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Tremblay on ``Commitment and Matching Contributions to Public Goods'' to the issue of reducing negative externality-causing activity. In particular, it adapts both the Guttman-Danziger-Schnytzer type of rate-matching mechanism and the quantity-contingent matching method for public good contributions to the international pollution abatement problem. In a simple two-country model, we find that both matching schemes induce the countries to internalize the negative externality imposed on the other country. However, perhaps due to the lack of enough policy instruments, they cannot equate the marginal costs of abatement across the countries, leaving room for Pareto improvement. This further improvement can be achieved if the two countries also contribute to a conventional public~good. Chapter IV is an empirical exercise on some positive externality-generating activities by the elderly. It attempts to document the charitable giving of money and time by people aged 60 or above in the 2003 PSID data for the United States and analyze the influences of some economic and demographic factors on these activities. Income, wealth, the subjective rating of health status, and years in school are found to have statistically significant impacts. Income and wealth appear to have distinct influences. The tax price of money donation also has a statistically significant effect on money donations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2007-11-19 01:48:10.777

There are many contexts where an "everybody else is doing it" attitude is relevant. We evaluate the impact of this attitude in a multi-threshold public goods game. We use a lab experiment to study the role of providing information about contribution behavior to targeted subsets of individuals, and its effect on coordination. Treatments include one in which no information is provided and three others that vary in whom we provide information to: a random sample of subjects; those whose contributions are below the average of their group, and those whose contributions are above the average of their group. We find that the random provision of information is no different than not providing information at all. More importantly, average contributions improve with targeted treatments. Coordination waste is also lower with targeted treatments. The insights from this research are relevant more broadly to contexts including piracy, open innovation, and crowdfunding.

This work focuses on the question of water as a public good and presents three significant approaches of environmental good treatment (considering water). Those are the environmental policy of a state, market approach and decentralized resource regimes. After that it focuses on the water policy in the Czech Republic and on the temporary Water Framework Directive implementation process. It compares the intended impacts with real effects of the implementation of directive. The comparison is made in three institutional areas -- competent authority, public participation and price policy in management of water. On behalf of the confrontation of institutional changes of these areas, it makes conclusions about real impacts of the Water Framework Directive implementation in the Czech Republic.

Multiple group memberships are the rule rather than the exception. Locally operating groups frequently offer the advantage of providing social recognition and higher marginal benefits to the individual, whereas globally operating groups may be more beneficial from a social perspective. Within a voluntary contribution environment we experimentally investigate the tension that arises when subjects belong to a smaller local and a larger global group. When the global public good is more efficient individuals first attempt to cooperate in the global public good. However, this tendency quickly unravels and cooperation in the local public good builds up. (author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur den politiska debatten kring friskolor fördes under åren 1996 och 2006 i Sveriges tre största dagstidningar. I studien undersöks även vilka argument de politiska agitatorerna använder sig av i ledar- och debattartiklar och vilka politiska skiljelinjer som kan åskådliggöras. Vidare vill uppsatsen undersöka hur den politiska diskursen påverkas av debattörernas avsikter och handlingsutrymme. Uppsatsen vilar på en kvalitativ grund där de artiklar som studerats valts ut utifrån en ämnesmässig relevans. Den hermeneutiska metoden har använts i studien för att kunna tolka det skriva på en objektiv grund. I uppsatsen beskrivs friskolornas historiska bakgrund och hur politiken har sett och ser på friskolorna. Uppsatsen visar att den politiska debatten kring friskolor i dagstidningarna handlar om vem som skall ha makten över utbildningen d.v.s. om huvudmannaskapet över skolan skall tillhöra staten eller familjen. I åren som uppsatsen undersöker märks hur den politiska debatten under 1996 mer kännetecknas av en övergripande ideologisk strid om skolan. Under 2006 finns denna konflikt kvar men utifrån andra förtecken där politiker kan agera på ett mer friare sätt i förhållande till sitt eget partis uppfattning i frågan.

This study examined the role and function of public relations in public higher education institutions by focusing on the messages being communicated by four public research-oriented universities. This study was designed to determine if and how these universities communicate their public good responsibility and how that communication is perceived by two constituent groups—higher education reporters and state legislators. The researcher used two qualitative methods: thematic analysis and in-depth/elite interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the universities’ mission and vision statements, strategic plans, legislative appropriations requests, presidential speeches, and 800 press releases (200 from each of four universities), to determine whether references to the public good were either present or absent in messages the universities disseminated during 2006 and 2007. In-depth/elite interviews were used to obtain the perspectives of the chief public relations officers at each of the four public research-oriented universities about their public relations strategies and communication goals. Higher education reporters covering these respective institutions and members of the legislature in positions of leadership on committees involved with higher education policy and funding issues were also interviewed to understand their perceptions about the universities. This study found the following 24 references to public good: the core concepts of research, teaching and public service; the benefits the universities create as engines of economic development; diversity; the recruitment and retention of faculty; the university as a center for arts, entertainment and cultural events; faculty and student achievement; student career enhancement; and institutional prestige, among others. The study demonstrated that public research-oriented universities are using public relations strategies and techniques to construct and distribute messages to their key constituents about the benefits they provide to the State and its citizens. Major findings also include the observation that higher education reporters cover higher education as a statewide beat which focuses on the state’s two flagship or Tier 1 universities—the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University and the institutions in the reporters respective cities. In addition, the higher education reporters write about “issues” related to higher education rather than institutions per se. The study also found that State Legislators only recognize the two Tier 1 institutions as research institutions and their perspectives about these institutions are driven by how these universities are funded. / text

Den här uppsatsen redogör för en kvalitativ textanalys av svensk hemundervisningsdebatt mellan åren 2000 och 2015. Det empiriska materialet bestående av 17 insändare, debattartiklar och ledare från en variation av svensk dagsmedia har analyserats med hjälp av systematisk-logisk analys samt kritisk ideologianalys. Syftet med undersökningen är att analysera debatten. Resultatet visar att argument som förekommer i debatten kan sorteras in under fyra teman: Barnet och familjen, Hemmets plats i samhället, Skolans plats i samhället samt Samhällets grund. Resultatet visar också att argument för hemundervisning liksom argument mot hemundervisning förekommer i alla teman. De framkomna argumenten har via de fyra konstruerade temana analyserats i relation till två teoretiska begrepp, public good och private good. Diskussionen av undersökningsresultatet visar att argument inom de två förstnämnda temana tenderar att vara ”mer” private good medan argument inom de två sistnämnda temana tenderar att vara ”mer” public good.

This study is a case study of an institutional transformational change effort in an urban research university. The study's focus is on the impact of The Milwaukee Idea on faculty and students as the soul of the university. Literature on transformational change in higher education focuses on the processes for launching this type of change and the role of formal change leaders. Less is known about the impact of transformational change on faculty and students. Relevant literature on change and institutional culture informed this study, including Kotter (1996), Wilber (1998), Cutright (2001), Peterson and Spencer (2000), Kezar and Eckel(2000), and Astin (2001). National projects sponsored by ACE and the Kellogg Foundation are also reviewed. Sense-making emerges as a critical construct in understanding the culture and values of students and faculty.Findings reveal that the change agenda brought cultural values around civic engagement, interdisciplinary work, and collaboration to the forefront of the institutional agenda. Faculty has engaged in new and enhanced work as a result of The Milwaukee Idea initiatives, while traditional university structures, including the faculty reward system, have been maintained. Students were recipients of the change agenda, but not active in its development. Community members have new expectations for their involvement in the university and the university's ability to contribute to the public good. There is an understanding in the community and at the university that their two fates are linked.The aggregate of faculty and student participants do not report a deep, pervasive impact on their culture and experiences. The Milwaukee Idea brought change to the university in new programs and centers, but it was not transformational. What The Milwaukee Idea did do is bring forward values within the culture and establish the university as a more visible presence and force in the local community.