Seminar & Workshop｜Research Institute for Socionetwork Strategies, Kansai University

JSPS-NFSC 2024 International Workshop

Date: December 14-15,2024
Venue: Senriyama Campus,Kansai University,Osaka,Japan
Theme: Social Media Advertising and Digital Marketing
Sponsoring Journal: The Review of Socionetwork Strategies
Sponsoring Institution: Research Institute for Socionetwork Strategies at Kansai University
Details: Click here for details.

※Researchers only

Seminar by Invited Researcher

Program: PDF
Date: November 19,2024 pm1:00～pm2:30
Venue: C204 room, Bldg2, Area2,Senriyama Campus,Kansai University,Osaka,Japan
Lecturers: Professor Naomi Soderstrom
（Professor of Accounting Faculty of Business and Economics The University of Melbourne）
Title: Introduction of Sustainability Accounting
Details: ※Students and Faculty（Researchers）only

RISS Workshop

Date: November 12,2024 pm3:30～pm5:00
Venue: Online（Zoom）
Lecturers: Tomohisa Okada （Lecturer, Daito Bunka University）
Co-researcher: Toshihiro Tsuchihashi（Professor, Daito Bunka University）
Title: Two-Dimensional Dictator Game - Money and Tasks -
Abstract: This study aims to enhance our understanding of institutions that elicit altruistic behavior in decision-making by expanding the traditional dictator game, which typically focuses on monetary distribution. We introduce a two-dimensional dictator game experiment that simultaneously allocates both money and unpleasant tasks. Our findings reveal that allocation rates in the two-dimensional game significantly improved compared to the traditional one-dimensional game. However, when focusing solely on monetary allocation, these rates deteriorated. This phenomenon may be attributed to two factors: (i) individuals may avoid being seen as unfair when they make decisions that benefit themselves in both dimensions (social image concerns), and (ii) by favorably allocating tasks to others, they might justify their self-serving monetary decisions (self image concerns). Additionally, we implemented several other treatments, such as having two dictators where one distributes money and the other allocates tasks, enabling us to compare results across treatments and explore which distribution of authority leads to the fairest outcomes.
Details: ※Researchers only

Lectures by Visiting Researchers organized by RISS

Program: PDF
Date: November 11,2024 pm4:20～pm6:20
Venue: Room 701,Umeda Campus,Kansai University,Osaka,Japan
Lecturers: Professor Naomi Soderstrom （Professor of Accounting Faculty of Business and Economics The University of Melbourne）
Title: Are Climate Scenario Analysis Disclosures Valued by Investors?
Abstract: Scenario analysis is a well-established management tool for developing and executing organizational strategy. While scenario analysis in general and stress testing as a form of scenario analysis in the banking sector have been used for policy-making and benchmarking, climate-related scenario analysis is a more recent development. Emergent accounting standards include requirements for firms to apply and disclose climate scenarios. This paper examines whether firms' usage of climate scenarios is valued by financial markets. Relying on voluntary disclosures from US publicly traded firms in the CDP database from 2018 to 2022, we find that firms conducting scenario analysis are associated with higher market valuations, with more positive results for firms that incorporate quantitative insights into their strategies. Further, our results are sensitive to the firm's overall sustainability performance. The findings highlight the importance of using scenario analysis to inform strategy and the need for clearer guidance on disclosure practices.
Details: ※Faculty（Researchers）only

RISS Workshop

Date: November 9,2024 pm3:30～pm4:30
Venue: RISS Multimedia Laboratory, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan
Lecturers: Daichi Shirai （Lecturer, Tohoku Gakuin University）
Title: Sources of Inequality and Business Cycles: Evidence from the US and Japan (Joint with Masaru Inaba and Kengo Nutahara)
Abstract: We investigate (i) sources of inequality and business cycle fluctuations in the US and Japan and (ii) the effects of reducing inequality on business cycles. Developing a heterogeneous-agent business cycle model with unconstrained and hand-to-mouth households and various wedges to represent economic distortions, we estimate the model by the Bayesian methods. We find that, in the US, the labor market distortion specific to unconstrained households is the common factor that significantly impacts business cycles and consumption inequality, whereas there are no common factors in Japan. In both countries, the primary source of business cycles is distortions in aggregate productivity, and that of consumption inequality is household-specific labor market distortions. We assess labor market reforms and redistribution policy as means to reduce consumption inequality. Our findings imply that the effects of lowering inequality on business cycle volatility depend on the country and how it is done. We also find that labor market reform is welfare-improving in both countries while redistribution policy is not.
Details: ※Researchers only

RISS Seminar

Date: June 15, 2023 Open at 15:30 / Start at 16:30-around 18:30
Venue: RISS Multimedia Laboratory, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan and Online（Zoom）
Lecturer: Wooyoung Lim（The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology）
Title: “Lying and Deception in Repeated Communication” joint with Syngjoo Choi (SNU) and Chanjoo Lee (SNU)
Abstract: Lying and deception are common in economic interactions and have important strategic implications. While related, they are distinct phenomena that may have different effects on communication outcomes. In this paper, we study repeated communication with a reputation concern in a two-dimensional belief domain, and identify two environments where lying and deception are completely separated. In one environment, the sender must tell the truth to conceal a bad intention, while in the other, the sender must lie to reveal a good intention. Our experimental data show that the proportion of senders who successfully build reputations is lower than predicted in both environments. Furthermore, the deviation from theory is greater when reputation-building requires lying rather than deception. Finally, we observe that receivers punish senders for lying, even when the intention behind it is good. Our findings suggest that different communication mechanisms may perform differently depending on their reliance on lying or deception, highlighting the need to distinguish between these two concepts investigating organizational and political phenomena.
Details: ※Researchers only

RISS Workshop

Date: May15,2023 Open at 15:30 / Start at 16:00-around17:20
Venue: RISS Multimedia Laboratory, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan　and Online（Zoom）
Lecturers: Toshihiko Nanba（Associate Professor, Kyoto University of Advanced Science）
Title: "Salesforce Compensation Design via Reinforcement Learning"（joint with Takahiro Inada 【KUAS】）
Abstract: We investigate the optimal sales force compensation plans in a multiperiod moral-hazard model. In our model, the firm offers the sales agent an incentive contract based on sales, but only obtains aggregate information on sales. Meanwhile, the sales agent strategically chooses his or her own effort in every period, taking the contract into consideration. To analyze these intricate scenarios, we introduce various frameworks that integrate reinforcement learning and neural networks, specifically employing Q-Learning, Deep Q Network(DQN), and Actor-Critic with deep learning. Our findings reveal that the firm favors a linear incentive contract over quota-based contract when the quota frequency is relatively short or when the sales agent exhibits impatience. Moreover, we find that a quota-based contract is optimal for the firm when the sales agent’s cost is relatively low.
Details: ※Researchers only

RISS Workshop

Date: May12,2023 Open at 15:30 / Start at 16:00-around17:20
Venue: RISS Multimedia Laboratory, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan　and Online（Zoom）
Lecturers: Masao Nagatsuka（Associate Professor, Osaka Gakuin University）
Title: "Obviously Dominant BDM Lotteries Experiments"
Abstract: This study aims to improve the BDM method (Becker, deGroot, and Marschak (1964)), which has been used in experimental economics to induce consumers to reveal their true willingness to pay, using findings from behavioral mechanism design. The BDM method performs extremely well theoretically, with truthful willingness-to-pay as a weak dominance strategy. However, it has been reported that the BDM method's concept of separating the stated amount from the payment amount may confuse experimental subjects and may not induce them to declare their true willingness to pay. Recently, in mechanism design, Li (2017) has shown that the reason why English auctions with the ascending method have better experimental performance than second-price auctions with the sealed-bid method, which have the same theoretical structure as the BDM method, is Obviouly strategy-proofness.In this study, we test whether applying the mechanism design of Li (2017), which takes Obviously Strategy-proofness into account, to the BDM method facilitates the declaration of the true willingness-to-pay amount by the following experimental conditions. (1) normal BDM, (2) ascending BDM, and (3) ascending BDM to test the effect of obviously strategyproofness. The results show that (1) normal BDM performs close to the theoretical value, and there is no statistically significant difference between normal BDM and ascending BDM. Future work is needed to validate the performance of ascending BDM under conditions where normal BDMs are known not to perform well.
Details: ※Researchers only

RISS Workshop

Date: November 18,2022 Open at 13:30 / Start at 14:00-around16:30
Venue: RISS Multimedia Laboratory, Senriyama Campus, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan　and Online（Zoom）
Lecturers: 1.Tetsuya Kawamura（Lecturer, Tezukayama University）
2.Andrzej Baranski（Assistant Professor, NYU Abu Dhabi）
Title: 1."Behavioral change and cognitive ability in repeated prisoner’s dilemma game experiments"
2."Competing for Proposal Rights: Theory and Experimental Evidence"
Abstract: 1.We examine whether cognitive ability affects the cooperative behavior of non-student participants in repeated prisoner’s dilemma experiments. The results show that high cognitive ability participants (1) cooperate more in the presence of the infinitely repeated condition (IFR) than the finitely repeated condition (FR), (2) cooperate more as the expected number of stage games in a round increases under the IFR, and (3) do not cooperate more as the number of stage games in a round increases under the FR. The strategy frequency estimation in the case of IFR suggests that for high cognitive ability, when the expected number of stage games increases, the share of grim trigger strategy increases while the defective strategy is less employed. Thus, high cognitive ability participants change their behavior according to the situation. Additionally, the behavior of low cognitive ability participants do not seem to change; the cooperation rate remains unchanged despite the conditions. However, the strategy frequency estimation in the case of IFR reveals a slight change in the participants ’behavior, based on the situation. Overall, this reveals a low cooperation rate.

2.Competition for positions of power is a common practice in most organizations including legislatures, firms, industry standard boards, and academic departments. We study theoretically and experimentally how different voting rules affect the incentives to compete for the right to propose a distribution of benefits via sequential bargaining. Our experimental findings uncover a novel efficiency trade-off absent in theory: While gridlock is stronger under unanimity, majoritarian bargaining elicits higher competition costs. The gridlock effect mildly dominates initially, but with experience, both rules yield equal efficiency levels challenging a longstanding notion on the preeminence of majoritarian rules. The distribution of benefits is affected by the endogeneity of proposal rights contrary to behavioral expectations: Subjects gravitate towards equitable sharing and proposers often do not keep the lion's share. Our results hold robustly under different bargaining protocols and subject samples.
Details: ※Researchers only

RISS Workshop

Date: January 26,2022 9:00-11:00
Venue: Online（Zoom）
Sponsers: The Economic Society of Kansai University
Lecturers: 1.Masaru Inaba(Professor,Kansai University)
2.Tomohide Mineyama(IMF)
Title: 1."What drives fluctuations of labor wedge and business cycles? Evidence from Japan" (joint with Kengo Nutahara[Senshu University] and Daichi Shirai[Tohoku Gakuin University])

2."Cyclicality and Asymmetry of the User Cost of Labor: Evidence and Theory" (joint with Toshitaka Maruyama [UCLA])
Abstract: 1.The literature has empirically verified that the labor wedge worsens during recession. Taking this statement into consideration, this study poses two questions: First, what is the main driving force of the labor wedge, and second, is the main driver of the labor wedge the same as that of business cycles? In this study, we employ a commonly used medium-scale dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with nominal and real frictions to analyze which structural shocks drive the fluctuation of the labor wedge and of business cycles. The model is estimated using Japanese data. Our estimation strategy is a particularly novel approach. In standard Bayesian estimation, the prior distribution of the parameters for the standard deviations of the structural shocks is the inverse gamma distribution, which does not support zero value and assumes the existence of structural shocks. By contrast, we employ a more flexible prior distribution of the parameters for the standard deviations of structural shocks and measurement errors to allow for the non-existence of structural shocks. Under the standard prior distribution, the estimation results imply that the labor wedge is mainly driven by preference and transitory technology shocks, whereas the investment adjustment cost shock is the most important for the business cycle fluctuations. However, under our relaxed prior distribution, which allows for the non-existence of structural shocks, the estimation results imply that both the labor wedge and business cycles are mainly driven by permanent technology and investment adjustment cost shocks.

2.The user cost of labor (UCL) plays an allocative role in a wide class of macroeconomic models. Despite this appealing feature, estimating the UCL involves empirical challenges as it requires a sequence of wages from hiring until separation. The cyclical changes in the average quality of new matches weigh on measuring the cyclicality of the UCL. In this paper, we overcome these challenges by exploiting unique Japanese data, which tracks wages at each tenure after school graduation. Our empirical findings are twofold. First, the UCL remains highly procyclical after controlling for the cyclical changes in the average job-match quality, whereas the new-hire wage is no longer more cyclical than the incumbent-worker wage. Second, downward adjustments of the UCL are smaller than upward ones. The downward rigidity arises from the combination of that of the new-hire and incumbent-worker wages. We then develop a wage posting model to account for these observations. We demonstrate that under asymmetric information, firms use wages as a screening tool to receive the application from targeted workers and maintain a high value of a posted contract in recessions, leading to the downward rigidity and overall high cyclicality of the UCL.
Details: ※Researchers only