In this thesis we study peer-based communities which are online communities whose services are provided by their participant agents. In order to improve the services an agent enjoys in these communities, we need to improve the services other agents offer. Towards this goal, we propose a novel solution which allows communities to share the experience of their members with other communities. The experience of a community with an agent is captured in the evaluation rating of the agent within the community, which can either represent the trustworthiness or the reputation of the agent. We argue that exchanging this information is the right way to improve the services the agent offers since it: i) exploits the information that each community accumulates to allow other communities to decide whether to accept the agent while it also puts pressure on the agent to behave well, since it is aware that any misbehaviour will be spread to the communities it might wish to join in the future, ii) can prevent the agent from overstretching itself among many communities, since this may lead the agent to provide very limited services to each of these communities due to its limited resources, and thus its trustworthiness and reputation might be compromised. We study mechanisms that can be used to facilitate the exchange of trust or reputation information between communities. We make two key contributions. First, we propose a graph-based model which allows a particular community to determine which other communities to ask information from. We leverage consistency of past information and provide an equilibrium analysis showing that communities are best-off when they truthfully report the requested information, and describe how payments should be made to support the equilibrium. Our second contribution is a promise-based trust model where agents are judged based on the contributions they promise and deliver to the community. We outline a set of desirable properties such a model must exhibit, provide an instantiation, and an empirical evaluation.

The performance management of public utilities becomes significant because public utilities provide essential resources and services for people¡¦s daily lives. In this research, we focus on public water utility and take Taiwan Water Corporation as a case study to establish an appropriate performance management system for public utility. We refer to other public water utilities abroad and employ best practice in our case company. Therefore, we demonstrate the performance management of public utilities comprise production-related and finance-related aspects including 6 goals which are production, customer, workplace, environment, cost and profit goal and generalize 18 KPIs to examine the performance of Taiwan Water Corporation. The result suggests that Taiwan Water Corporation underperformed in recent years due to the achievement rates of 18 KPIs decreased gradually; however, its incentive bonus increased inversely. We presume that the current performance management involving goal setting, assessment standards, and reward system of Taiwan Water Corporation exists contradiction and inadequacy. Finally, we can learn from best practice that the performance assessment of public utility should be divided into production-related and finance-related aspects including six goals. Besides, the evaluation of reward system is suggested to connect with company¡¦s vision, mission and goal for causal relationship so that the team priority and individual priority are simultaneous and possess goal congruence.

The Web 2.0 concept brought up the trends of growing rapidly interactive websites which were based on the internet characteristics such as upload creations, member votes, and even the the exchange of the gifts. In a brief summery, all the incredible activities are growing mainly under the encouragement of the diversity and accumulation of the users¡¦ engagements. This study is based on the reference to the user experience and interface activities of kinds of popular Web2.0 websites. Also, through the 480 questionnaires samples and researches, this study tried to find the possible motivative activities and knowledge sharing models according to the users¡¦ motives, behaviors and self-gratification. Furthermore, this study also focused on the evaluation to the users¡¦ self-gratification after the extrinsic motivate rewards which were published to the general users. The study results appeared that when the virtual community platforms adopt different kinds of motivate rewards; the positive influence is always existed between the user motive and the outside motivation rewards. To particularly point out, the extrinsic rewards of praising in public and community usefulness has the highest correlation through the Pearson correlation analysis. Also, the outside motivate activities will affect the interactive behaviors between the users accordingly. On the personal characteristics observation, the ages and educations have significant differences to the users¡¦ motive. And the user experience of virtual community websites such as the quantities of accounts, frequency to visit the websites, and the average time of staying on the website have significant differences to user motives. And on the perspective of motivation and user behaviors, the results basically are similar with the theory of uses and gratification. There is above 50% samples pointed out that trust and identification are the important key factors on all the websites activities between users. Especially the human-human interaction is the most popular one during the research. To conclude all the research efforts, this study made a prior research on the new internet activities and provided some ideas on the correlations of the motive, behaviors and gratification on users¡¦ side. Through the concrete results hope may have the study bases for further market researches or much practical reference to the website business management.

Experimental willingness to pay (WTP) studies can be classified as hypothetical or non-hypothetical. In a hypothetical study, such as conjoint analysis, a subject does not need to make a real economic commitment. In contrast, in a non-hypothetical task such as in experimental auctions, a subject may need to actually buy the product. Subjects in hypothetical studies tend to overstate their true WTP. Consequently, researchers need to correct hypothetical values to obtain reliable WTP estimates. Recently, incentive-aligned and cheap talk approaches have been proposed as ways to correct for hypothetical bias. In a hypothetical task, a cheap talk script explicitly reminds the subject about the hypothetical nature of the task and its expected consequences. In an incentive-aligned task (non-hypothetical), subjects are randomly selected to physically buy the product. The objective of our study is to assess and compare the reduction of hypothetical bias in consumers’ willingness to pay for novel products by applying a generic, short, and neutral cheap talk script in a retail setting. To accomplish this objective, we employ non-hypothetical, hypothetical, and hypothetical with cheap talk treatments in our experimental design. We conducted our experimental retail study using conjoint analysis and open-ended elicitation mechanisms, utilizing Becker DeGroot Marshak (BDM) mechanism for the incentive-aligned treatments. Consistently in both elicitation mechanisms, using seemingly unrelated and random-effect Tobit techniques, we find that our cheap talk script is effective in eliminating the hypothetical bias. As expected, the hypothetical WTP values are significantly higher than the non-hypothetical values but the hypothetical values with cheap talk are not significantly different from incentive-aligned or non-hypothetical estimates. In addition, we find that open-ended estimates are significantly higher than conjoint analysis estimates and that emotions and familiarity can have significant impacts on WTP estimates.

Abstract National Health Insurance (NHI) has been implemented in Taiwan for nearly eight years; since then, over 96% of 23 million residents of Taiwan have benefited from this program, and 70% of them are satisfied. Recently, the growth rate of healthcare expenditure, however, has been phenomenally rapid, owing to the ageing population, the economic development, the expansion of health insurance, the increased supply of healthcare resources, and the innovation of medical technology. Under the circumstance that the bill of raising the insurance premium rate could not be passed by the legislative congress, the Bureau of NHI (BNHI) was forced to economize on expense to achieve the financial balance. Currently, the BNHI implements ¡§total amount control¡¨ to control the total medical claimed payments of each medical healthcare provider. Facing the increasing volume of documentary auditing, the BNHI has to make its efforts on how to improve its auditing efficiency. This is also one of the purposes of this thesis. This study aimed to establish a reasonable and fair auditing procedure of medical claim payment, termed ¡§medical claim payments auditing (MCPA) procedure¡¨. At the stage of professional auditing, adopted the ¡§MIL-STD-105E sampling plan¡¨ to select data for professional audit and used the auditing results as a payment criterion. To verify the adaptability of the MCPA procedure, the researcher used the data provided by the institutes of Kaohsiung and Pintong as simulation objects. Further, the estimated cost model was adopted to increase the possibility of using this procedure. The MCPA procedure consists of the following characteristics: 1) The number of sampling is much lower than that of the current system used by the NHI, thus the audit labor-force and time can be reduced significantly. 2) The incentive mechanism design encourages the healthcare providers to honestly apply their medical claim payments and avoids inappropriate healthcare services. 3) Adopting international standards of sampling technology makes the MCPA procedure trustworthy and simultaneously can reduce the implementing obstructs. Keywords: National Health Insurance; Sampling plan; Incentive mechanism design

Collective Action , National Teachers' Association R.O.C

Our purpose is to examine: what should be the best subsidy mechanism which can reduce the lost from the asymmetric information problem whereas the administration performs a subsidy policy. We use the incentive contract theory to establish our models, and analyze different kinds of subsidy policy results. We prove that: compare with the partial equally subsidy, zero-subsidy and full-purchase subsidy, the partial discriminably subsidy is the best subsidy policy.

The intrinsic features of woker, ``ability' and ``motivation', are useful resources of human capital that makes profit for the firm. The purpose of the study is to examine how the firm designs the optimal wage policy when worker's intrinsic features are private information. The study follows the mechainsm-design approach, by which models with single, as well as double, intrinsic feature(s) of worker are established, and best ``incentive wage packages' are deduced. We finded out that, under single intrinsic feature, the firm's optimal wage package entails that, the more output the higher wages; under double intrinsic features, the firm must takes the relative strength of intrinsic features of the worker into account when making the optimal incentive wage package.

<p>Problem: Although performance measurement systems (PMSs) in firms to a large extent regard motivation of the employees, motivation theory is rarely used as frame-work to study the use and implications of PMS. The starting point of our identified problem is the narrow theoretical framework used in prior research of formulation of PMS in firms, when only relying on agency theory. We consider the present conceptions used as a foundation for the results in theoretical and empirical research of PMS are a barrier for more efficient governance control in firms. Therefore we ask if agency theory alone solid enough as a framework to capture the complex behavioural aspects of PMS? Or does an incorporation of motivation theory extend the under-standing of the use of PMS in firms? The answer has got important practical implications for all firms characterised by the separation of ownership and control. This brings us to the question: When evaluating and rewarding employees, which aspects are crucial to consider when formulating PMS in order to maximise the value of the firm?</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to extend the understanding of the use of PMSs in banks. Contrary to prior research in this field, our purpose is to extend the conceptual framework by incorporating motivation theory extensively when analysing the use of PMS. In addition the results of this study are intended to give practical indications from a firm value maximizing perspective of which aspects that are crucial when formulating a PMS.</p><p>Method: A qualitative method has been chosen to collect empirical data to our study. We have conducted interviews with our respondents working in the two banks. Mo-reover from our theoretical and empirical the conclusions are drawn in line with the approach of abduction.</p><p>Conclusion: From what we have seen in our study there is no absolute answer, since there are many contingencies which affects how a PMS should be adapted to an organisation. However, due to four numbers of reasons we have come to the conclusion that the use of one atomistic measurement system, together with a profit-sharing system, is to prefer where all employees are rewarded equally.</p>

Human-induced climate change, with its potentially catastrophic impacts on weather patterns, water resources, ecosystems, and agricultural production, is the toughest global problem of modern times. Impeding catastrophic climate change necessitates the widespread deployment of renewable energy technologies for reducing the emissions of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon di-oxide (CO₂). However, the deployment of renewable energy technologies is plagued by various market failures, such as environmental externalities from conventional energy sources, learning-by-doing, innovation spillover effects, and peer effects. In efforts to begin to address these market failures, several governments at all levels—city, state, regional, and national—have instituted various subsidies for promoting the adoption of renewable energy technologies. Public resources are limited and have competing uses. So, it is important to ask: how cost-effective are renewable energy subsidies? Are the subsidies even reaching the intended subjects—the potential adopters of renewable energy technologies? In this empirically-driven dissertation, I analyze these important policy design and evaluation questions with a focus on the solar subsidy programs in California. All programs to incentivize the adoption of renewable energy technologies run into the same key question: what is the optimal (maximum capacity inducing) rebate schedule in the face of volatile product prices and the need for policy certainty? Answering this question requires careful attention to both supply-side (learning-by-doing) and demand-side (peer effects) market dynamics. I use dynamic programming to analyze the effectiveness of the largest state-level solar photovoltaic (PV) subsidy program in the U.S. – the California Solar Initiative (CSI) – in maximizing the cumulative PV installation in California under a budget constraint. I find that previous studies overestimated learning-by-doing in the solar industry. Consistent with other studies, I also find that peer effects are a significant demand driver in the California solar market. The main implication of this empirical finding in the dynamic optimization context is that it forces the optimal solution towards higher subsidies in earlier years of the program, and, hence, leads to a lower program duration (for the same budget). In particular, I find that the optimal rebate schedule would start not at $2.5/W as it actually did in CSI, but instead at $4.2/W; the effective policy period would be only three years instead of the realized period of six years. This optimal (i.e., most cost effective) solution results in total PV adoption of 32.2 MW (8.1%) higher than that installed under CSI, using the same budget. Furthermore, I find that the optimal rebate schedule starts to look like the actual CSI in a ‘policy certainty’ scenario where the variation of periodic subsidy-level changes is constrained. Finally, introduction of stochastic learning-by-doing as a way to better capture the dynamic nature of learning in markets for new products does not yield significantly different results compared to the deterministic case. Another, still-unanswered, redistribution question related to the CSI program is: to what degree have the direct PV incentives in California been passed through from installers to consumers? I address this question by carefully examining the residential PV market in California by applying multiple methods. Specifically, I apply a structural-modeling approach, a reduced-form regression analysis, and regression discontinuity designs to estimate the incentive pass-through rate in California’s solar program. The results consistently suggest a high average pass-through rate of direct incentives of nearly 100%, though with regional differences among California counties and utilities. While these results could have multiple explanations, they suggest a relatively competitive market and a smoothly operating subsidy program. Combining evidence from the optimal subsidy policy design and the incentive pass-through analysis, this dissertation lends credibility to the cost-effectiveness of CSI given CSI’s design goal of providing policy certainty and also finds a near-perfect incidence in CSI. Long-term credible commitment as reflected through CSI’s capacity-triggered step changes in rebates along with policy and data transparency are important factors for CSI’s smooth and cost-effective functioning. Though CSI has now wound down because final solar capacity targets have been reached, the historical performance of CSI is relevant not only as an ex-post analysis in California, but potentially has broader policy implications for other solar incentive programs both nationally and internationally. / text