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Behavioral Public Finance, Edward J. Mccaffery
Behavioral Public Finance, Edward J. Mccaffery
Edward J McCaffery
These are slides from a presentation to the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference, May, 2008 (at which event Michael Jensen got me to agree to post these slides as a pdf on SSRN . . . ). The task is to give an overview of what I hope to be an emerging field of behavioral public finance. Behavioral finance, as per Barberis and Thaler 2003 (and others), consists of two parts: (1) individual level heuristics and biases, which can lead to sub-optimal (inconsistent) judgment and decision-making, and (2) institutional arbitrage mechanisms. In private finance and …
Comments On Liebman And Zeckhauser, Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies, Edward J. Mccaffery
Comments On Liebman And Zeckhauser, Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies, Edward J. Mccaffery
Edward J McCaffery
These are brief comments on an excellent paper by Jeffrey Liebman and Richard Zeckhauser, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings on tax and health care policy. Liebman and Zeckhauser summarize the complexities involved in making optimal health insurance decisions, and offer generally cautionary notes about conflating these with tax law (a theme of the conference). Most importantly, Liebman and Zeckhauser suggest a positive role for employers in health care and insurance decisions, as better setters or framers of choice sets—witness 401(k) plans. In this Commentary, I applaud Leibman and Zeckhauser’s general work and particular observation, …
The Petrochina Syndrome: Regulating Capital Markets In The Anti-Globalization Era, Stephen F. Diamond
The Petrochina Syndrome: Regulating Capital Markets In The Anti-Globalization Era, Stephen F. Diamond
Stephen F. Diamond
This article argues that the process of globalization has generated a legitimation deficit that can be the source of wasteful, even destructive, social and political conflict. I stylize this outcome as "the PetroChina Syndrome," after a leading example of the kind of activity generated in response to globalization, the PetroChina Campaign, where a coalition of labor, human rights, environmental, anti-slavery and religious groups worked together to oppose the initial public offering of a major Chinese oil company led by Goldman Sachs. The article begins with a discussion of this important but largely unexplored dimension of the anti-globalization era triggered by …