Part 1 – the Basics
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Herbert Gintis – Samuel Bowles – Their Distribution Preferences, and That They Robert Boyd – Ernst Fehr (Eds.): Moral Do So Differently in Different Situations
Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2008, Vol. 44, No. 6 social capital theory, which shows that so- the face of the evolutionary logic in which cial collaboration is built on social networks material advantages can be achieved by that underlie norms of reciprocity and trust- adopting self-interested preferences? worthiness. The development of these pro- social dispositions is in turn enabled in so- Clara Sabbagh cieties that further extra-familial ties and University of Haifa disregard or transcend purely ‘amoral fa- [email protected] milist’ interactions [Banfi eld 1958]. This research project nevertheless References leaves several unresolved problems. First, Banfi eld, Edward C. 1958. The Moral Basis of a Backward Society. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. there is the problem of causality, which de- Camerer, Colin F. 2003. Behavioral Game Theory. rives from a major theoretical dilemma in New York: Russell Sage. the social sciences. To what extent are pro- Deutsch, Morton. 1985. Distributive Justice. New social dispositions the result of structur- Haven: Yale University Press. al constraints, such as market integration, Giddens, Anthony. 1997. Sociology. Cambridge, or rather an active element in structuring UK: Polity Press. these constraints [Giddens 1997]? Joseph Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work. Henrich (Chapter 2) discusses this prob- Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: lem on a theoretical level by explaining the Princeton University Press. different mechanisms through which the Sabbagh, Clara and Deborah Golden. 2007. ‘Jux- structure of interaction affects preferences. taposing Etic and Emic Perspectives: A Refl ec- tion on Three Studies on Distributive Justice.’ Yet only future longitudinal research will Social Justice Research 20: 372–387. -
Surviving the Titanic Disaster: Economic, Natural and Social Determinants
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Frey, Bruno S.; Savage, David A.; Torgler, Benno Working Paper Surviving the Titanic Disaster: Economic, Natural and Social Determinants CREMA Working Paper, No. 2009-03 Provided in Cooperation with: CREMA - Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Zürich Suggested Citation: Frey, Bruno S.; Savage, David A.; Torgler, Benno (2009) : Surviving the Titanic Disaster: Economic, Natural and Social Determinants, CREMA Working Paper, No. 2009-03, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA), Basel This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214430 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu CREMA Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts Surviving the Titanic Disaster: Economic, Natural and Social Determinants Bruno S. -
When Does Behavioural Economics Really Matter?
When does behavioural economics really matter? Ian McAuley, University of Canberra and Centre for Policy Development (www.cpd.org.au) Paper to accompany presentation to Behavioural Economics stream at Australian Economic Forum, August 2010. Summary Behavioural economics integrates the formal study of psychology, including social psychology, into economics. Its empirical base helps policy makers in understanding how economic actors behave in response to incentives in market transactions and in response to policy interventions. This paper commences with a short description of how behavioural economics fits into the general discipline of economics. The next section outlines the development of behavioural economics, including its development from considerations of individual psychology into the fields of neurology, social psychology and anthropology. It covers developments in general terms; there are excellent and by now well-known detailed descriptions of the specific findings of behavioural economics. The final section examines seven contemporary public policy issues with suggestions on how behavioural economics may help develop sound policy. In some cases Australian policy advisers are already using the findings of behavioural economics to advantage. It matters most of the time In public policy there is nothing novel about behavioural economics, but for a long time it has tended to be ignored in formal texts. Like Molière’s Monsieur Jourdain who was surprised to find he had been speaking prose all his life, economists have long been guided by implicit knowledge of behavioural economics, particularly in macroeconomics. Keynes, for example, understood perfectly the “money illusion” – people’s tendency to think of money in nominal rather than real terms – in his solution to unemployment. -
Property in Housing Lee Anne Fennell
University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Kreisman Working Paper Series in Housing Law and Working Papers Policy 2013 Property in Housing Lee Anne Fennell Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/ housing_law_and_policy Part of the Law Commons Chicago Unbound includes both works in progress and final versions of articles. Please be aware that a more recent version of this article may be available on Chicago Unbound, SSRN or elsewhere. Recommended Citation Lee Anne Fennell, "Property in Housing" (Kreisman Working Papers Series in Housing Law and Policy No. 13, 2013). This Working Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Working Papers at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Kreisman Working Paper Series in Housing Law and Policy by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHICAGO PUBLIC LAW AND LEGAL THEORY WORKING PAPER NO. 426 KREISMAN WORKING PAPER ON HOUSING LAW AND POLICY NO. 13 PROPERTY IN HOUSING Lee Anne Fennell THE LAW SCHOOL THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO April 2013 This paper can be downloaded without charge at the Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper Series: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/academics/publiclaw/index.html and The Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection. Academia Sinica Law Journal No. 12 March 2013 Property in Housing Lee Anne Fennell Suggested citation format: Footnote: Lee Anne Fennell, Property in Housing , 12 ACADEMIA SINICA L.J. 31, 31-78 (2013). Reference : Fennell, Lee Anne. 2013. Property in Housing. Academia Sinica Law Journal 12:31-78. -
Mindful Economics: the Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs
Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 30, Number 3—Summer 2016—Pages 141–164 Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs Roland Bénabou and Jean Tirole n the economic models of old, agents had backward-looking expectations, arising from simple extrapolation or error-correction rules. Then came the I rational-expectations revolution in macroeconomics, and in microeconomics the spread and increasing refinements of modern game theory. Agents were now highly sophisticated information processors, who could not be systematically fooled. This approach reigned for several decades until the pendulum swung back with the rise of behavioral economics and its emphasis on “heuristics and biases” (as in Tversky and Kahneman 1974). Overconfidence, confirmation bias, distorted prob- ability weights, and a host of other “wired-in” cognitive mistakes are now common assumptions in many areas of economics. Over the last decade or so, the pendulum has started to swing again toward some form of adaptiveness, or at least implicit purposefulness, in human cognition. In this paper, we provide a perspective into the main ideas and findings emerging from the growing literature on motivated beliefs and reasoning. This perspec- tive emphasizes that beliefs often fulfill important psychological and functional needs of the individual. Economically relevant examples include confidence in ones’ abilities, moral self-esteem, hope and anxiety reduction, social identity, polit- ical ideology and religious faith. People thus hold certain beliefs in part because ■ Roland Bénabou is Theodore A. Wells ‘29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princ- eton University, Princeton, New Jersey and a Senior Fellow, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Canada. -
Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality∗
Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality∗ Herbert Gintis Department of Economics University of Massachusetts, Amherst Phone: 413-586-7756 Fax: 413-586-6014 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/˜gintis Running Head: Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality March 11, 2000 Abstract Human groups maintain a high level of sociality despite a low level of relatedness among group members. The behavioral basis of this sociality remains in doubt. This paper reviews the evidence for an empirically identifi- able form of prosocial behavior in humans, which we call ‘strong reciprocity,’ that may in part explain human sociality. A strong reciprocator is predisposed to cooperate with others and punish non-cooperators, even when this behavior cannot be justified in terms of extended kinship or reciprocal altruism. We present a simple model, stylized but plausible, of the evolutionary emergence of strong reciprocity. 1 Introduction Human groups maintain a high level of sociality despite a low level of relatedness among group members. Three types of explanation have been offered for this phe- nomenon: reciprocal altruism (Trivers 1971, Axelrod and Hamilton 1981), cultural group selection (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981, Boyd and Richerson 1985) and genetically-based altruism (Lumsden and Wilson 1981, Simon 1993, Wilson and Dugatkin 1997). These approaches are of course not incompatible. Reciprocal ∗ I would like to thank Lee Alan Dugatkin, Ernst Fehr, David Sloan Wilson, and the referees of this Journal for helpful comments, Samuel Bowles and Robert Boyd for many extended discussions of these issues, and the MacArthur Foundation for financial support. This paper is dedicated to the memory of W. -
Memory, Attention, and Choice
Memory, Attention, and Choice Pedro Bordalo, Nicola Gennaioli, Andrei Shleifer1 Revised May 7, 2019 (original version 2015) Abstract. Building on the textbook description of associative memory (Kahana 2012), we present a model of choice in which options cue recall of similar past experiences. Recall shapes valuation and choice in two ways. First, recalled experiences form a norm, which serves as an initial anchor for valuation. Second, salient quality and price surprises relative to the norm lead to large adjustments in valuation. The model provides a unified account of many well documented choice puzzles including experience effects, projection and attribution biases, background contrast effects, and context- dependent willingness to pay. The results suggest that well-established psychological processes – memory-based norms and attention to surprising features – are key to understanding decision-making. 1 The authors are from University of Oxford, Universita Bocconi, and Harvard University, respectively. We are grateful to Dan Benjamin, Paulo Costa, Ben Enke, Matt Gentzkow, Sam Gershman, Thomas Graeber, Michael Kahana, Spencer Kwon, George Loewenstein, Sendhil Mullainathan, Josh Schwartzstein, Jesse Shapiro, Jann Spiess, Linh To, and Pierre- Luc Vautrey for valuable comments. Shleifer thanks the Sloan Foundation and the Pershing Square Venture Fund for Research on the Foundations of Human Behavior for financial support. 1 1. Introduction Memory appears to play a central role in even the simplest choices. Consider a thirsty traveler thinking of whether to look for a shop to buy a bottle of water at the airport. He automatically retrieves from memory similar past experiences, including the pleasure of quenching his thirst and the prices he paid before, and decides based on these recollections. -
Walrasian Economics in Retrospect
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert Working Paper Walrasian Economics in Retrospect Working Paper, No. 2000-04 Provided in Cooperation with: Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Suggested Citation: Bowles, Samuel; Gintis, Herbert (2000) : Walrasian Economics in Retrospect, Working Paper, No. 2000-04, University of Massachusetts, Department of Economics, Amherst, MA This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/105719 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu WALRASIAN ECONOMICS IN RETROSPECT∗ Department of Economics University of Massachusetts Amherst, Massachusetts, 01003 Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis February 4, 2000 Abstract Two basic tenets of the Walrasian model, behavior based on self-interested exogenous preferences and complete and costless contracting have recently come under critical scrutiny. -
The Nature of Human Altruism
review article The nature of human altruism Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher University of Zu¨rich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Blu¨mlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zu¨rich, Switzerland ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Some of the most fundamental questions concerning our evolutionary origins, our social relations, and the organization of society are centred around issues of altruism and selfishness. Experimental evidence indicates that human altruism is a powerful force and is unique in the animal world. However, there is much individual heterogeneity and the interaction between altruists and selfish individuals is vital to human cooperation. Depending on the environment, a minority of altruists can force a majority of selfish individuals to cooperate or, conversely, a few egoists can induce a large number of altruists to defect. Current gene-based evolutionary theories cannot explain important patterns of human altruism, pointing towards the importance of both theories of cultural evolution as well as gene–culture co-evolution. uman societies represent a huge anomaly in the animal a psychological13—definition of altruism as being costly acts that world1. They are based on a detailed division of labour confer economic benefits on other individuals. The role of kinship and cooperation between genetically unrelated individ- in human altruism is not discussed because it is well-known that uals in large groups. This is obviously true for modern humans share kin-driven altruism with many other animals14,15.We societies with their large organizations and nation states, will show that the interaction between selfish and strongly recipro- Hbut it also holds for hunter-gatherers, who typically have dense cal individuals is essential for understanding of human cooperation. -
An Economic Sociological Look at Economics
An Economic Sociologial Look at Economics 5 An Economic Sociological Look at Economics By Patrik Aspers, Sebastian Kohl, Jesper an impact on essentially all strands of economics over the Roine, and Philipp Wichardt 1 past decades. The fact that game theory is not (only) a subfield but a basis for studying strategic interaction in Introduction general – where ‘strategic’ does not always imply full ra- tionality – has made it an integral part of most subfields in New economic sociology can be viewed as an answer to economics. This does not mean that all fields explicitly use economic imperialism (Beckert 2007:6). In the early phase game theory, but that there is a different appreciation of of new economic sociology, it was common to compare or the importance of the effects (strategically, socially or oth- debate the difference between economics and sociology. erwise) that actors have on one another in most fields of The first edition of the Handbook of Economic Sociology economics and this, together with other developments, (Smelser/Swedberg 1994:4) included a table which com- has brought economics closer to economic sociology. pared “economic sociology” and “main-stream econom- ics,” which is not to be found in the second edition (Smel- Another point, which is often missed, is the impact of the ser/Swedberg 2005). Though the deletion of this table was increase in computational power that the introduction of due to limited space, one can also see it as an indication of computers has had on everyday economic research. The a gradual shift within economic sociology over this pe- ease by which very large data materials can be analyzed riod.2 has definitely shifted mainstream economics away from “pure theory” toward testing of theories with more of a That economic sociology, as economic anthropology, was premium being placed on unique data sets, often collected defined in relation to economics is perhaps natural since by the analyst. -
Edited by Alain Samson with a Foreword by George Loewenstein
Edited by Alain Samson With a Foreword by George Loewenstein and Rory Sutherland The Behavioral Economics Guide 2014 1st Edition Author information: Alain Samson (Editor) George Loewenstein (Foreword) Rory Sutherland (Foreword) Phil Barden, Francesco Bogliacino, Leigh Caldwell, Cristiano Codagnone, Tom Ewing, Gerhard Fehr, George Gaskell,, Asit Gupta, Elina Halonen, Juliet Hodges, Moritz Jäger, Alain Kamm, John Kearon, Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva, Henry Stott, Giuseppe A. Veltri (Contributing authors) Design and layout by Elina Halonen. Cover design adapted from Tilly Patsalis. Proofing by Mark Jones and Leigh Caldwell. Copyright © by the authors All Rights Reserved Requests for permission to reproduce materials from this work should be sent to [email protected] or directly to contributing authors. Suggested citation: Samson, A. (Ed.)(2014). The Behavioral Economics Guide 2014 (with a foreword by George Loewenstein and Rory Sutherland) (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://www.behavioraleconomics.com. Suggested citation for individual sections/authors: [Author(s)] (2014). [Chapter/Section Title]. In A. Samson (Ed.), The Behavioral Economics Guide 2014 (with a foreword by George Loewenstein and Rory Sutherland) (1st ed.)(pp. nn-nn). Retrieved from http://www.behavioraleconomics.com. II Behavioral Economics Guide – 2014 With Contributions By: III Behavioral Economics Guide – 2014 Contents FOREWORD George Loewenstein and Rory Sutherland: An Exchange ............................................................................................................................... -
14.160: Behavioral Economics Syllabus – Fall 2017 Thurs 4:00 to 7:00 Pm E51-361
14.160: Behavioral Economics Syllabus – Fall 2017 Thurs 4:00 to 7:00 pm E51-361 Instructors: Frank Schilbach, E52-560 Email: [email protected] Office hours: Sign up at http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/fschilb/office Gautam Rao, E52-540 Email: [email protected] Office hours: By appointment Graduate Teaching Assistant: Chishio Furukawa Email: [email protected] Recitation: Fri 10:30-11:30am, E52-324 Office hours: TBA Course overview: This class covers recent topics in behavioral economics, with an emphasis on empirical applications and tests. Topics include deviations from the standard neoclassical model in terms of (i) preferences (time and risk preferences, reference dependence, and social preferences), (ii) beliefs and learning (overconfidence, projection bias, and attribution bias), and (iii) decision-making (cognition, attention, framing, and persuasion), as well as (iv) market reactions to such deviations. Applications will cover a wide range of fields, including labor and public economics, industrial organization, health economics, finance, and development economics. The main course objectives are as follows: 1) Obtain exposure to the frontier of empirical research in behavioral economics 2) Learn how to critically assess a rapidly evolving literature and how to develop novel ideas that contribute to it 3) Learn how to test (behavioral) economic theory using field experiments and non- experimental data 4) Develop and present a research proposal, as well as give feedback to others The course is designed for first- and second-year PhD students in economics. It is meant to help launch students into conducting empirical research in behavioral economics, or to incorporate behavioral economics into their research in other fields.