Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Zambia
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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. -
Economics 881.25 Human Capital and Economic Development
Economics 881.25 Human Capital and Economic Development Class Meetings Class times Fridays 15:05 - 17:35 Classes begin 9 January 2015 Classes end 20 February 2015 Class location Social Sciences 111 Instructor Instructor Robert Garlick Email [email protected] Office Social Sciences 204 Office hours Wednesdays 13:30 - 15:30 for open office hours http://robertgarlick.youcanbook.me for one-on-one meetings about research 1 Course Overview This is a graduate, seminar-style course studying the intersection between development economics and the economics of human capital. The course is aimed primarily at doctoral students in eco- nomics who are interested in conducting research in development economics. Much of the material will also be relevant for graduate students interested in applied microeconomic research on human capital topics. The course will focus on two dimensions of human capital: education and health. Issues around nutrition and fertility will be discussed briefly but will not be a major focus. We will focus on economic topics relevant to low- and middle-income countries and will primarily read papers using data from these countries. We will also read some papers using data from developed countries, focusing on their theoretical or methodological contributions. We will only briefly discuss some macroeconomic aspects of the relationship between human capital and economic development. We will not study the relationship between human capital and the labor market, as this will be discussed in detail in Economics 881.26. The course has three goals: 1. Prepare students to conduct applied microeconomic research at the intersection between de- velopment economics and the economics of human capital 2. -
PAPM 1000 Winter 2011 1
PAPM 1000 Winter 2011 1 Carleton University Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs PAPM 1000: Introduction to Public Affairs and Policy Management Winter Term: History of Economic Thought Winter 2011 Instructor: Derek Ireland Wednesday: 14:35-16:25 (2:35-4:25 PM) Office: D199 Loeb Building C164 Loeb Building Phone: 613 747 9593 Office Hours: Wednesdays From 13:00 to 14:20 --Or Email: [email protected] Determined Through Emails with Student Course Objective The objective of the course is to provide an understanding of economic ideas and thinking, how these ideas have evolved and developed and been applied through many centuries, and the implications of economic ideas for past and current policy debates, analysis, development and management. What do we mean by economic ideas? Economic ideas are essentially the concepts, hypotheses, presumptions, guesses and initial thoughts on cause and effect relationships that have been identified, discussed and argued about by economic thinkers over the past decades and centuries. Some of these concepts, guesses and so on are then developed into economic theories which are applied and tested in theoretical and empirical research and policy analysis in our attempts to find answers to such questions as: . Why do consumers purchase what they do? . Why do businesses produce what they do and locate in one place rather than another? . Why do countries trade with each other and should there be more or less international trade in the future? . Why do some countries grow faster than others? . Why are the more advanced OECD countries expected by many economists to grow much more slowly in the future? . -
Gender and Child Health Investments in India Emily Oster NBER Working Paper No
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES DOES INCREASED ACCESS INCREASE EQUALITY? GENDER AND CHILD HEALTH INVESTMENTS IN INDIA Emily Oster Working Paper 12743 http://www.nber.org/papers/w12743 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 December 2006 Gary Becker, Kerwin Charles, Steve Cicala, Amy Finkelstein, Andrew Francis, Jon Guryan, Matthew Gentzkow, Lawrence Katz, Michael Kremer, Steven Levitt, Kevin Murphy, Jesse Shapiro, Andrei Shleifer, Rebecca Thornton, and participants in seminars at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and NBER provided helpful comments. I am grateful for funding from the Belfer Center, Kennedy School of Government. Laura Cervantes provided outstanding research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. © 2006 by Emily Oster. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Does Increased Access Increase Equality? Gender and Child Health Investments in India Emily Oster NBER Working Paper No. 12743 December 2006 JEL No. I18,J13,J16,O12 ABSTRACT Policymakers often argue that increasing access to health care is one crucial avenue for decreasing gender inequality in the developing world. Although this is generally true in the cross section, time series evidence does not always point to the same conclusion. This paper analyzes the relationship between access to child health investments and gender inequality in those health investments in India. A simple theory of gender-biased parental investment suggests that gender inequality may actually be non-monotonically related to access to health investments. -
Allied Social Science Associations Atlanta, GA January 3–5, 2010
Allied Social Science Associations Atlanta, GA January 3–5, 2010 Contract negotiations, management and meeting arrangements for ASSA meetings are conducted by the American Economic Association. i ASSA_Program.indb 1 11/17/09 7:45 AM Thanks to the 2010 American Economic Association Program Committee Members Robert Hall, Chair Pol Antras Ravi Bansal Christian Broda Charles Calomiris David Card Raj Chetty Jonathan Eaton Jonathan Gruber Eric Hanushek Samuel Kortum Marc Melitz Dale Mortensen Aviv Nevo Valerie Ramey Dani Rodrik David Scharfstein Suzanne Scotchmer Fiona Scott-Morton Christopher Udry Kenneth West Cover Art is by Tracey Ashenfelter, daughter of Orley Ashenfelter, Princeton University, former editor of the American Economic Review and President-elect of the AEA for 2010. ii ASSA_Program.indb 2 11/17/09 7:45 AM Contents General Information . .iv Hotels and Meeting Rooms ......................... ix Listing of Advertisers and Exhibitors ................xxiv Allied Social Science Associations ................. xxvi Summary of Sessions by Organization .............. xxix Daily Program of Events ............................ 1 Program of Sessions Saturday, January 2 ......................... 25 Sunday, January 3 .......................... 26 Monday, January 4 . 122 Tuesday, January 5 . 227 Subject Area Index . 293 Index of Participants . 296 iii ASSA_Program.indb 3 11/17/09 7:45 AM General Information PROGRAM SCHEDULES A listing of sessions where papers will be presented and another covering activities such as business meetings and receptions are provided in this program. Admittance is limited to those wearing badges. Each listing is arranged chronologically by date and time of the activity; the hotel and room location for each session and function are indicated. CONVENTION FACILITIES Eighteen hotels are being used for all housing. -
Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World? Author(S): Steven D
American Economic Association What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal about the Real World? Author(s): Steven D. Levitt and John A. List Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring, 2007), pp. 153-174 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033722 . Accessed: 03/07/2012 00:24 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Economic Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Economic Perspectives. http://www.jstor.org Journal of EconomicPerspectives-Volume 21, Number2-Spring 2007--Pages 153-174 What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal About the Real World? Steven D. Levitt and John A. List Economists have increasingly turned to the experimental model of the physical sciences as a method to understand human behavior. Peer- reviewedreviewed articles using the methodology of experimental economics were almost nonexistent until the mid-1960s and surpassed 50 annually for the first time in 1982; and by 1998, the number of experimental papers published per year exceeded 200 (Holt, 2006). Lab experiments allow the investigator to influence the set of prices, budget sets, information sets, and actions available to actors, and thus measure the impact of these factors on behavior within the context of the labora- tory. -
The Role of Cliometrics in History and Economics
Documents de travail « The Role of Cliometrics in History and Economics» Auteurs Claude Diebolt, Michael Haupert Document de Travail n° 2021 – 26 Juin 2021 Bureau d’Économie Théorique et Appliquée BETA www.beta-umr7522.fr @beta_economics Contact : [email protected] The Role of Cliometrics in History and Economics Claude Diebolt, CNRS, University of Strasbourg and Michael Haupert, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Prepared for Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method Draft: June 10, 2021 Summary How did cliometrics in particular, and economic history in general, arrive at this crossroads, where it is at once considered to be a dying discipline and one that is spreading through the economics discipline as a whole? To understand the current status and future prospects of economic history, it is necessary to understand its past. Keywords Cliometrics, economic history, Robert Fogel, Douglass North, economic growth, econometrics, interdisciplinary economic history, new economic history, multidisciplinary, methodology, quantitative. JEL codes A12, N00, N01 Introduction In 2019 Diebolt and Haupert (2019a), in a response to the question of whether economic history had been assimilated by the economics discipline, argued that rather than assimilation, economic history resembled a ninja, and had infiltrated the discipline. That view of the current status of economic history is not universally shared. Abramitzky (2015 p 1242) bemoaned the fact that the typical economist only cares about the past “to the extent that it sheds light on the present.” More recently, Stefano Fenoaltea (2018) mourned what he saw as the loss of respect for the field of cliometrics. Abramitzky and Fenoaltea represent contemporary scholars who identified dark shadows encroaching upon economic historians. -
Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines*
TYING ODYSSEUS TO THE MAST: EVIDENCE FROM A COMMITMENT SAVINGS PRODUCT IN THE PHILIPPINES* NAVA ASHRAF DEAN KARLAN WESLEY YIN We designed a commitment savings product for a Philippine bank and im- plemented it using a randomized control methodology. The savings product was intended for individuals who want to commit now to restrict access to their savings, and who were sophisticated enough to engage in such a mechanism. We conducted a baseline survey on 1777 existing or former clients of a bank. One month later, we offered the commitment product to a randomly chosen subset of 710 clients; 202 (28.4 percent) accepted the offer and opened the account. In the baseline survey, we asked hypothetical time discounting questions. Women who exhibited a lower discount rate for future relative to current trade-offs, and hence potentially have a preference for commitment, were indeed significantly more likely to open the commitment savings account. After twelve months, average savings balances increased by 81 percentage points for those clients assigned to the treatment group relative to those assigned to the control group. We conclude that the savings response represents a lasting change in savings, and not merely a short-term response to a new product. I. INTRODUCTION Although much has been written, little has been resolved concerning the representation of preferences for consumption over time. Beginning with Strotz [1955] and Phelps and Pollak [1968], models have been put forth that predict individuals will exhibit more impatience for near-term trade-offs than for future trade-offs. These models often incorporate hyperbolic or quasi- * We thank Chona Echavez for collaborating on the field work, the Green Bank of Caraga for cooperation throughout this experiment, John Owens and the USAID/Philippines Microenterprise Access to Banking Services Program team for helping to get the project started, Nathalie Gons, Tomoko Harigaya, Karen Lyons and Lauren Smith for excellent research and field assistance, and three anony- mous referees and the editors. -
Take-Up and Targeting: Experimental Evidence from SNAP
Take-up and Targeting: Experimental Evidence from SNAP Amy Finkelstein and Matthew J. Notowidigdo∗ April 2019 Abstract We develop a framework for welfare analysis of interventions designed to increase take-up of social safety net programs in the presence of potential behavioral biases. We calibrate the key parameters using a randomized field experiment in which 30,000 elderly individuals not enrolled in – but likely eligible for – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are either provided with information that they are likely eligible, provided with this information and also offered assistance in applying, or are in a “status quo” control group. Only 6 percent of the control group enrolls in SNAP over the next 9 months, compared to 11 percent of the Information Only group and 18 percent of the Information Plus Assistance group. The individuals who apply or enroll in response to either intervention have higher net income and are less sick than the average enrollee in the control group. We present evidence consistent with the existence of optimization frictions that are greater for needier individuals, which suggests that the poor targeting properties of the interventions reduce their welfare benefits. JEL codes: C93; H53; I38 Keywords: SNAP; Food Stamps; Take-Up; Targeting; Welfare. ∗MIT and Northwestern (respectively), National Bureau of Economic Research, and J-PAL North America. We are grateful to Martin Aragoneses, Aileen Devlin, Carolyn Stein, John Tebes, and Ting Wang for excellent research assis- tance and to Laura Feeney for superb research management. We thank our excellent partners at Benefits Data Trust, and particularly Rachel Cahill and Matt Stevens who worked tirelessly and patiently to address our inumerable re- quests and questions. -
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Toward an Ethical Experiment∗ Yusuke Naritay June 11, 2018 Abstract Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) enroll hundreds of millions of subjects and in- volve many human lives. To improve subjects' welfare, I propose an alternative design of RCTs. This design (1) produces a Pareto efficient allocation of treatment assignment probabilities, (2) is asymptotically incentive compatible for preference elicitation, and (3) unbiasedly estimates any causal effect estimable with standard RCTs. I quantify these properties by applying my proposal to a water cleaning experiment in Kenya (Kremer et al., 2011). Compared to standard RCTs, my design substantially improves subjects' predicted well-being while reaching similar treatment effect estimates with similar precision. Keywords: Research Ethics, Clinical Trial, Social Experiment, A/B Test, Market De- sign, Causal Inference, Development Economics, Spring Protection, Discrete Choice ∗I am grateful to Dean Karlan for a conversation that inspired this project; Joseph Moon for industrial and institutional input; Jason Abaluck, Josh Angrist, Tim Armstrong, Sylvain Chassang, Naoki Egami, Pe- ter Hull, Costas Meghir, Bobby Pakzad-Hurson, Amanda Kowalski, Michael Kremer, Kritika Narula, Rohini Pande, Parag Pathak, Mark Rosenzweig, Jesse Shapiro, Joseph Shapiro, Suk Joon Son, Seiki Tanaka, Kosuke Uetake, and Glen Weyl for criticisms and encouragement; seminar participants at Chicago, Columbia, Wis- consin, Tokyo, Oxford, Microsoft, AEA, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Brown, NBER, Illinois, Yale, Hitotsubashi, European Summer Symposium in Economic Theory on \An Economic Per- spective on the Design and Analysis of Experiments," CyberAgent, Kyoto, International Conference on Experimental Methods in Economics. I received helpful research assistance from Soumitra Shukla, Jaehee Song, Mizuhiro Suzuki, Devansh Tandon, Lydia Wickard, and especially Qiwei He, Esther Issever, Zaiwei Liu, Vincent Tanutama, and Kohei Yata. -
Psychologists at the Gate: a Review of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast
Journal of Economic Literature 2012, 50(4), 1–12 http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jel.50.4.1 Psychologists at the Gate: A Review of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow Andrei Shleifer* The publication of Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is a major intellectual event. The book summarizes, but also integrates, the research that Kahneman has done over the past forty years, beginning with his path-breaking work with the late Amos Tversky. The broad theme of this research is that human beings are intuitive thinkers and that human intuition is imperfect, with the result that judgments and choices often deviate substantially from the predictions of normative statistical and economic models. In this review, I discuss some broad ideas and themes of the book, describe some economic applications, and suggest future directions for research that the book points to, especially in decision theory. (JEL A12, D03, D80, D87) 1. Introduction result that judgments and choices often devi- ate substantially from the predictions of nor- he publication of Daniel Kahneman’s mative statistical and economic models. This Tbook, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, research has had a major impact on psychol- Straus, and Giroux 2011), is a major intellec- ogy, but also on such diverse areas of eco- tual event. The book summarizes, but also nomics as public finance, labor economics, integrates, the research that Kahneman has development, and finance. The broad field done over the past forty years, beginning with of behavioral economics—perhaps the most his path-breaking work with the late Amos important conceptual innovation in econom- Tversky. -
Evaluación Referencias Generales Referencias Adicionales
Desarrollo Económico CIDE — División de Economía Fernanda Márquez-Padilla Salón: a determinar [email protected] Horario de clase: Martes y jueves, 9.00h Primavera 2017 Horario de atención en oficina: a determinar Evaluación La evaluación del curso se basará en la presentación de un artículo de investigación, la elaboración de un dictamen para un artículo de investigación (referee report), un examen parcial y un examen final. La nota final se calculará con base en los siguientes porcentajes: Presentación en clase 15% Fecha por determinar Dictamen de artículo 15% Entrega en clase el martes 23 de mayo Primer parcial 30% Jueves 16 de marzo Examen final 40% Martes 30 de mayo Referencias generales Debraj Ray. Development economics. Princeton University Press, 1998 (DE) Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Roland Benabou, and Dilip Mookherjee. Understanding poverty. Oxford University Press, 2006 (UP) Referencias adicionales Joshua D Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiri- cist’s companion. Princeton university press, 2008 (MHE) Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Why nations fail: The origins of power, prosperity, and poverty. Crown Business, 2012 Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. Poor economics: A radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. PublicAffairs, 2012 Angus Deaton. The great escape: health, wealth, and the origins of inequality. Princeton University Press, 2013 1 1 Introducción DE Capítulo 2 UP Capítulo 1 Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo. The economic lives of the poor. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1):141–168, March 2007. doi: 10.1257/jep.21.1.141. URL http: //www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.21.1.141 2 Causas inmediatas del desarrollo económico 2.1 Capital físico DE—Capítulo 3 Infraestructura Taryn Dinkelman.