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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. -
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. -
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk Biographical Sketch 1998 Phd, University Of
Prof. Dr. Armin Falk Biographical Sketch 1998 PhD, University of Zurich 1998 - 2003 Assistant professor, University of Zurich 2003 - 2005 Lecturer, Central European University (Budapest) 2003 - today Research Director, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) 2003 - today Professor of Economics, University of Bonn Affiliations with CESifo, CEPR Research Interests Labor Economics, Behavioral and experimental economics Selected Journal Publications “Fairness Perceptions and Reservation Wages - The Behavioral Effects of Minimum Wage Laws” (with Ernst Fehr and Christian Zehnder), Quarterly Journal of Economic, forthcoming. “Distrust - The Hidden Cost of Control” (with Michael Kosfeld), American Economic Review, forthcoming. “Clean Evidence on Peer Effects” (with Andrea Ichino), Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming. “A Theory of Reciprocity” (with Urs Fischbacher), Games and Economic Behavior 54 (2), 2006, 293-315. “Driving Forces Behind Informal Sanctions” (with Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher), Econometrica 73 (6), 2005, 2017-2030. “The Success of Job Applications: A New Approach to Program Evaluation” (with Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller), Labour Economics 12 (6), 2005, 739-748. “Choosing the Joneses: Endogenous Goals and Reference Standards” (with Markus Knell), Scandinavian Journal of Economics 106 (3), 2004, 417-435. “Relational Contracts and the Nature of Market Interactions” (with Martin Brown and Ernst Fehr), Econometrica 72, 2004, 747-780. “On the Nature of Fair Behavior” (with Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher), Economic Inquiry 41(1), 2003, 20-26. “Reasons for Conflict - Lessons From Bargaining Experiments” (with Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher), Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 159 (1), 2003, 171-187. “Why Labour Market Experiments?” (with Ernst Fehr), Labour Economics 10, 2003, 399-406. -
Why Social Preferences Matter – the Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics University of Zurich Working Paper Series ISSN 1424-0459 forthcoming in: Economic Journal 2002 Working Paper No. 84 Why Social Preferences Matter – The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher January 2002 Why Social Preferences Matter - The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives Ernst Fehra) University of Zurich, CESifo and CEPR Urs Fischbacherb) University of Zürich Frank Hahn Lecture Annual Conference of the Royal Economic Society 2001 Forthcoming in: Economic Journal 2002 Abstract: A substantial number of people exhibit social preferences, which means they are not solely motivated by material self-interest but also care positively or negatively for the material payoffs of relevant reference agents. We show empirically that economists fail to understand fundamental economic questions when they disregard social preferences, in particular, that without taking social preferences into account, it is not possible to understand adequately (i) the effects of competition on market outcomes, (ii) laws governing cooperation and collective action, (iii) effects and the determinants of material incentives, (iv) which contracts and property rights arrangements are optimal, and (v) important forces shaping social norms and market failures. a) Ernst Fehr, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Bluemlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland, email: [email protected]. b) Urs Fischbacher, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich, Bluemlisalpstrasse 10, CH-8006 Zurich, Switzerland, email: [email protected]. Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 The Nature of Social Preferences 2 2.1 Positive and Negative Reciprocity: Two Examples …............... -
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. -
Dear Workshop Participants, This Paper Reports Results of a Vignette
Dear Workshop Participants, This paper reports results of a vignette study in which subjects tell us how they believe they would respond when faced with various (hypothetical) scenarios along with a closely related experiment in which subjects engage in real interactions and faced monetary consequences for their (and others’) decisions. The latter experiment is a pilot study on a subject pool of MTurk workers, which we conducted just last week. We wanted to make sure we were able to replicate the results of the vignette in a setting with real interactions and monetary incentives before conducting a more expensive, full-scale version of the second experiment on student participants in the lab. We will be able to make changes to the design prior to running the full version of that experiment. Thus, your feedback on all aspects of the paper, especially the design of the second experiment, will be particularly valuable to us going forward. Rebecca Norm-Based Enforcement of Promises∗ Nathan Atkinsony Rebecca Stonez Alexander Stremitzerx ETH Zurich UCLA ETH Zurich January 22, 2020 Abstract Considerable evidence suggests that people are internally motivated to keep their promises. But it is unclear whether promises alone create a meaningful level of com- mitment in many economically relevant situations where the stakes are high. We experimentally study the behavior of third-party observers of an interaction between a potential promisor and potential promisee who have the opportunity to punish, at a cost to themselves, non-cooperative behavior by the potential promisor. Our results suggest that third parties' motivations to punish promise breakers have the same struc- ture as the moral motivations of those deciding whether or not to keep their promises. -
Theories of the Policy Process 0813343593-Text.Qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page Ii 0813343593-Text.Qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page Iii
0813343593-text.qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page i Theories of the Policy Process 0813343593-text.qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page ii 0813343593-text.qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page iii Theories of the Policy Process Edited by Paul A. Sabatier University of California, Davis Westview Press A Member of the Perseus Books Group 0813343593-text.qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page iv Copyright © 2007 by Westview Press Published by Westview Press, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877. Find us on the World Wide Web at www.westviewpress.com. Westview Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge MA 02142, or call (617) 252-5298 or (800) 255-1514, or e-mail [email protected]. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Theories of the policy process / edited by Paul A. Sabatier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8133-4359-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8133-4359-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Policy sciences. 2. Political planning. I. Sabatier, Paul A. H97.T475 2007 320.6—dc22 2006036952 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 0813343593-text.qxd 11/29/06 12:56 PM Page v Contents Part I Introduction 1 The Need for Better Theories, Paul A. -
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. -
Behavioral Economics in Context Applications for Development, Inequality & Discrimination, Finance, and Environment
Behavioral Economics In Context Applications for Development, Inequality & Discrimination, Finance, and Environment By Anastasia C. Wilson An ECI Teaching Module on Social and Environmental Issues in Economics Global Development Policy Center Boston University 53 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02155 bu.edu/gdp Economics in Context Initiative, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University, 2020. Permission is hereby granted for instructors to copy this module for instructional purposes. Suggested citation: Wilson, Anastasia C. (2020) “Behavioral Economics In Context: Applications for Development, Inequality & Discrimination, Finance, and Environment.” An ECI Teaching Module on Social and Economic Issues, Economics in Context Initiative, Global Development Policy Center, Boston University, 2020. Students may also download the module directly from: http://www.bu.edu/eci/education-materials/teaching-modules/ Comments and feedback from course use are welcomed: Economics in Context Initiative Global Development Policy Center Boston University 53 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215 http://www.bu.edu/eci/ Email: [email protected] NOTE – terms denoted in bold face are defined in the KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS section at the end of the module. BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS IN CONTEXT TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 4 1.1 The History and Development of Behavioral Economics .......................................................... 5 1.2 Behavioral Economics Toolkit: