Voting on Behalf of a Future Generation: A Laboratory Experiment

Intergenerational problems occur when current generations choose actions that benefit them, without fully considering future generations’ needs. This study posits that the public has a general tendency to serve as the proxy of future generations willingly, and aims to develop a visual narrative intervention measure to accelerate this willingness. The narrative was created based on an interview survey with a participant in a Future Design workshop as an “imaginary future generation.” Next, a laboratory experiment was designed using this visual narrative as an intervention tool, to assess the impact of this intervention on the experimental subjects’ political preferences and their concerns for future generations. A total of 186 subjects chose their most preferred option among four options prevalent in the life of the present generation, before and after the exposure to this intervention. The exposure to this visual narrative significantly changed the participants’ preferences as the proxies for future generations. After this intervention, the subjects wished that the present generation had chosen sustainable options more different from the status quo so that future generations would not experience regret from inaction (i.e., the regret of not having performed certain actions in the present), indicating that the intervention was effective in acquiring the perspective of future generations. This study demonstrates that individuals in the present generation can be motivated to take the perspective of those in future generations.

When Do Conflicting Parties Share Political Power? An Experimental Study

Intergenerational Inequality and the Contract Out Policy in Public Health Care

<i>The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now</i> by Henry Shue

Understanding the incentives of politicians requires understanding the nature of voting behavior. I conduct a laboratory experiment to investigate whether voters focus on the problem of electoral selection or if they instead focus on electoral sanctioning. If voters are forward‐looking but uncertain about politicians’ unobservable characteristics, then it is rational to focus on selection. But doing so undermines democratic accountability because selection renders sanctioning an empty threat. In contrast to rational choice predictions, the experimental results indicate a strong behavioral tendency to use a retrospective voting rule. Additional experiments support the interpretation that retrospective voting is a simple heuristic that voters use to cope with a cognitively difficult inference and decision problem and, in addition, suggest that voters have a preference for accountability. The results pose a challenge for theories of electoral selection and voter learning and suggest new interpretations of empirical studies of economic and retrospective voting.

This essay is the outcome of a colloquium convened in November 2005 at the Benthos Laboratory of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Ischia, Italy, on chemical ecology and the role of secondary metabolites in the structuring and functioning of marine biodiversity. The participants of the workshop are part of the European Network of Excellence MarBEF (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function), a consortium of 56 European marine institutes to integrate and disseminate knowledge and expertise on marine biodiversity. Here we review some of the new trends and emerging topics in marine chemical ecology. The first section deals with microbial chemical interactions. Microbes communicate with each other using diffusible molecules such as N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHL). These are regulators in cell-density-dependent gene regulation (quorum sensing) controlling microbial processes. In chemical interactions with higher organisms, microbes can act either as harmful pathogens that are repelled by the host’s chemical defense or as beneficial symbionts. These symbionts are sometimes the true producers of the host’s secondary metabolites that have defensive and protective functions for their hosts. We also describe how allelochemicals can shape phytoplankton communities by regulating competition for available resources, and also interactions among individuals of the same species. Compounds such as the diatom-derived unsaturated aldehydes have been demonstrated to act as info chemicals, and they possibly function as a diffusible bloom-termination signal that triggers an active cell death and bloom termination at sea. The same molecules have also been shown to interfere with the reproductive capacity of grazing animals deterring future generations of potential predators. Such compounds differ from those that act as feeding deterrents since they do not target the predator but its offspring. Many of the neurotoxins produced by dinoflagellates act as feeding deterrents, and laboratory experiments have shown that ingestion of these algae by some microzooplankton and macrozooplankton can cause acute, responses such as death, incapacitation, altered swimming behavior, and reduced fecundity and egg-hatching success. These effects may rarely occur in nature because of low individual grazing rates on dinoflagellate cells and grazing on other food sources such as microflagellates and diatoms. We also consider the nutritional component of marine plant-herbivore interactions, especially in the plankton, and the information available on the effects of growing conditions of algae on the production of toxic metabolites. Species producing saxitoxins seem to consistently produce the highest amounts of toxins (on a per cell basis) in the exponential phase of growth, and there is a decrease in their production under nitrogen, but not under phosphorus stress, where the production actually increases. We try to explain the circumstances under which organisms defend themselves chemically and argue that the most likely explanatory model for the production of secondary metabolites used for defense in planktonic organisms is the carbon nutrient balance hypothesis, which predicts that most algae produce their toxins mainly under conditions where carbon is in excess and nitrogen (or other nutrients) is limiting. We also discuss chemically mediated macroalgal-herbivore interactions in the benthos and the large variation in concentration of seaweed defense metabolites at different spatial and temporal scales. Seaweeds have been shown to produce a large variety of secondary metabolites with highly variable chemical structures such as terpenoids, acetogenins, amino acid derivates, and polyphenols. Many of these compounds probably have multiple simultaneous functions for the seaweeds and can act as allelopathic, antimicrobial, and antifouling or ultraviolet-screening agents, as well as herbivore deterrents. We also provide examples of interactions between marine benthic invertebrates, especially sponges, molluscs, and cnidarians, that are mediated by specific secondary metabolites and discuss the role of these in shaping benthic communities.

This article examines the importance and specific features of book block sewing methods in restoration works. During the process of restoring a book, sewing techniques represent one of the key stages for ensuring its durability and functional quality. Based on laboratory experiments, the effectiveness of different methods was compared, and the materials used as well as durability indicators were analyzed. At present, both in Kazakhstan and worldwide, one of the most important tasks is the preservation of cultural heritage, including ancient manuscripts and rare books, in their authentic form for transmission to future generations. The study highlights the role and significance of book sewing methods in restoration practice. Laboratory research analyzed the characteristics of the notebook method, chain sewing, and sewing on external cords, defining their durability and functional properties. The advantages and disadvantages of each method were identified, and the effectiveness of applying combined techniques in specific restoration contexts was demonstrated. The results contribute both scientifically and practically to the preservation of rare books in their original condition. Scientific research into book block sewing methods enhances restoration quality and supports the safeguarding of national heritage. The main goal of this study is to analyze sewing methods through laboratory testing, compare their effectiveness, and determine the most suitable options for restoration works. The findings enable restorers to choose the most effective techniques for restoring historical books, thereby ensuring their long-term preservation, reintegration into scientific circulation.

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co‐existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non‐overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling‐down objection.

High temperature material solutions for future power generation applications require longer component lifetimes at higher temperatures to improve durability and efficiency. From a research and development point of view, the lifetimes are too long for experimental verification. Thus, accurate lifetime models are needed. Examples are provided where modeling is being applied to lifetime prediction of thin-walled NiCr wrought alloy components. Specific laboratory experiments have been conducted for alloy X at 900°–950°C in dry air and air with water vapor with cycle times from 1 to 500 h. Along with microstructure characterization, comparisons are made between experiment and model predictions. The eventual goal is to predict both oxidation and mechanical behavior.

Short-Term Deviations from Simple Majority Voting

Simple consensus methods are often used in crowdsourcing studies to label cases when data are provided by multiple contributors. A basic majority vote rule is often used. This approach weights the contributions from each contributor equally but the contributors may vary in the accuracy with which they can label cases. Here, the potential to increase the accuracy of crowdsourced data on land cover identified from satellite remote sensor images through the use of weighted voting strategies is explored. Critically, the information used to weight contributions based on the accuracy with which a contributor labels cases of a class and the relative abundance of class are inferred entirely from the contributed data only via a latent class analysis. The results show that consensus approaches do yield a classification that is more accurate than that achieved by any individual contributor. Here, the most accurate individual could classify the data with an accuracy of 73.91% while a basic consensus label derived from the data provided by all seven volunteers contributing data was 76.58%. More importantly, the results show that weighting contributions can lead to a statistically significant increase in the overall accuracy to 80.60% by ignoring the contributions from the volunteer adjudged to be the least accurate in labelling.

Understanding the mechanisms of gender discrimination in the labor market is especially important due to the influences that it may have on income inequality, education of future generations, occupational distribution, women’s position and opportunities, intergenerational inequality, and ultimately poverty. Specific to the case of Albania, this issue becomes especially important given the prospect of the country joining the European Union. If existing issues of inequality are not adequately addressed, Albania runs the risk of facing wage inequalities increasing even further, if women do not have the skills needed for the European markets and become even less competitive. This chapter estimates the gender wage gap and the different sources that account for such disparity. The findings indicate that education is key and should be given special consideration by policy makers, but other important sources such as occupational segregation, work experience, and child care also play a crucial role.KeywordsLabor MarketHuman CapitalChild CareWage EquationWage DistributionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

The objective of this chapter is to design a laboratory experiment for an infinite-horizon sequential committee search model in order to test some of the implications obtained by the model in Albrech et al. (J Econ Theory 145:1386–1407, 2010) (AAV). We find that, compared with single-agent search, the search duration is longer for committee search under the unanimity rule, but is shorter for committee search in which at least one vote is required to stop searching. In addition, according to estimates from round-based search decisions, subjects are more likely to vote to stop searching in committee search than in single-agent search. This confirms that agents are less picky in committee search. Overall, the experimental outcomes are consistent with the implications suggested by the AAV model. However, despite the prediction from the AAV model, we could not obtain a significant outcome in relation to the size order of the probabilities of voting to stop searching in committee search for the various plurality voting rules.

Cooperation is defined as any adaptation that has evolved, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of the actor's social partners. Inclusive fitness theory reveals that cooperation can be favoured by natural selection owing to either direct fitness benefits (mutually beneficial cooperation) or indirect fitness benefits (altruistic cooperation). Direct fitness benefits can arise as a simple by‐product of cooperation, or else owing to the existence of enforcement mechanisms, which may be fixed or conditioned according to the individual's cooperative behaviour. Indirect fitness benefits can arise when cooperation occurs between genetically similar individuals, as a consequence of limited dispersal, kin discrimination or greenbeard mechanisms. These theoretical mechanisms are illustrated with empirical examples, from laboratory experiments to field studies. Key Concepts The function of Darwinian adaptation is to maximise the organism's inclusive fitness. Inclusive fitness describes how well an organism transmits copies of its genes to future generations. Direct fitness is the part of inclusive fitness that comes from the organism's own reproductive success. Indirect fitness is the part of inclusive fitness that comes from the reproductive success of the organism's genetic relatives. Cooperation is any adaptation whose function is, at least in part, to increase the reproductive success of a social partner. Cooperation is mutually beneficial if the actor also benefits and altruistic if the actor suffers a net loss of reproductive success. Mutually beneficial cooperation is favoured by direct fitness benefits. Direct fitness benefits can arise as a by‐product or owing to enforcement mechanisms. Altruistic cooperation is favoured by indirect fitness benefits. Indirect fitness benefits can arise as a consequence of limited dispersal, kin discrimination or greenbeard mechanisms.

As New Zealand faces the challenges of an ageing population and widening inequality, it is useful to ask: what is the long-run economic role of KiwiSaver, is it an inclusive institution, and how can it be strengthened for future generations? This article explores the economic benefits of KiwiSaver beyond individual retirement outcomes in the future. It examines whether KiwiSaver contributes to national savings, reduces long-term fiscal pressures, and supports intergenerational inequality by promoting early asset-building. Considering case studies from Singapore, Australia and the Netherlands, the article highlights how starting earlier, contributing more and investing better can build economic resilience, increase capital accumulation, and reduce social polarisation by supporting intergenerational equity. The findings of this research and focus on the need for long-term stewardship allows us to think deeply about how today’s contributions to KiwiSaver can shape a better future for the younger generations in the year 2100.