The chase-away model of sexual selection posits that elaborate male sexual displays arise because they exploit preexisting biases in females' sensory systems and induce females to mate in a suboptimal manner. An essential element of this hypothesis is that such manipulation should quickly lead to female resistance to male displays. Nuptial food gifts may be a frequent conduit by which males att...

Gift giving is a ubiquitous social phenomenon, and red packets have been used as monetary gifts in Asian countries for thousands of years. In recent years, online red packets have become widespread in China through the WeChat platform. Exploiting a unique dataset consisting of 61 million group red packets and seven million users, we conduct a large-scale, data-driven study to understand the spr...

Min, Ji Hong. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2013. Two Marketing Essays: Evolution of Attribute-Specific Preferences through Consumer Learning and the Effect of Gift Exchange on the Purchase Behavior. Major Professor: Subramanian Balachander. The first essay investigates the evolution of attribute-specific preferences through consumer learning. Most extant consumer learning models allow for...

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the ethical acceptability of physicians receiving gifts from drug companies. Professional guidelines recognize industry gifts as a conflict of interest and establish thresholds prohibiting the exchange of large gifts while expressly allowing for the exchange of small gifts such as pens, note pads, and coffee. Considerable evidence from the soci...

Males and females often experience different optima in mating rate, which may cause evolution of female resistance to matings and male counter adaptations to increase mating rate. Males of the spider Pisaura mirabilis display a spectacular mating behavior involving a nuptial gift and thanatosis (death feigning). Thanatosis in a sexual context is exceptional and was suggested to function as an a...

Article history: Received 12 December 2007 Available online 24 December 2008 JEL classification: J33 M52 C93

In nuptial gift-giving species females sometimes select their potential mates based on the presence and size of the gift. But in some species, such as the Neotropical polyandrous spider Paratrechalea ornate male gifts vary in quality, from nutritive to worthless, and this male strategy can be in conflict with female nutritional benefits. In this species, males without gifts experience a reducti...

This paper describes the current estate and gift tax rules that apply to intergenerational transfers in the US. It summarizes the incentives for inter vivos giving, gifts from a donor to a recipient while the donor is alive, as a strategy for reducing estate tax liability. It shows that the current level of intergenerational transfers is much lower than the level that would be implied by simple...