Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Hierarchical Decomposition Of U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditure: 1984-1991 And 2000-2006, Steven D. Silver

Faculty Publications

We conceptualize structure in personal consumption by explicitly defining categorizations of goods and services that consumers typically make in defining and organizing these objectives in their heuristics. Results from estimation of an Almost Ideal (AI) Demand System in each of two study periods generally support the structural differentiation of consumption goods.

A Free Exchange E-Marketplace For Digital Services, Wafa M. I. Ghonaim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The digital era is witnessing a remarkable evolution of digital services. While the prospects are countless, the e-marketplaces of digital services are encountering inherent game-theoretic and computational challenges that restrict the rational choices of bidders. Our work examines the limited bidding scope and the inefficiencies of present exchange e-marketplaces. To meet challenges, a free exchange e-marketplace is proposed that follows the free market economy. The free exchange model includes a new bidding language and a double auction mechanism. The rule-based bidding language enables the flexible expression of preferences and strategic conduct. The bidding message holds the attribute-valuations and bidding rules …

Financial Literacy And Financial Planning In France, Luc Arrondel, Majdi Debbich, Frédérique Savignac

Numeracy

We study financial literacy in France using the PATER survey and following the Lusardi and Mitchell (2011c) approach. We find that some subpopulations are less financially literate than others: women, young and old people as well as less-educated people are more likely to face difficulties when dealing with fundamental financial concepts such as risk diversification and inflation and interest compounding. We also find some differences in financial knowledge depending on the political opinion of the respondents. Finally we show that these differences in financial knowledge are correlated with differences in the propensity to plan: people who score higher on the …

Financial Literacy And Financial Behavior Among Young Adults: Evidence And Implications, Carlo De Bassa Scheresberg

Numeracy

This paper uses data from the 2009 National Financial Capability Study to examine financial literacy and financial behavior in a sample of approximately 4,500 young adults age 25 to 34. The paper finds that most young adults lack basic financial knowledge. Financial literacy is especially low among certain demographic groups, such as women, minorities, and lower-income or less-educated people. A high level of education, however, is not a guarantee of financial literacy. Only 49% of young respondents with a college education and 60% of young respondents with postgraduate education could correctly answer three simple questions designed to assess financial literacy. …

The Fii Model As An Investment In Patience: Exploring Time Preferences In Medellin, Colombia, Jennifer Graham

Master's Theses

The motivation for this research is to explore the success behind the Oakland based Family Independence Initiative (FII) as a model for poverty alleviation. During the period of June-December 2012, nearly 200 small business owners in Medellin, Colombia participated in a field experiment intended to replicate the FII model by randomizing the treatments of setting goals, receiving conditional payments, and participating in self-help groups, as well as the combinations thereof. The data shows that the subjects in the full FII treatment group achieve more goals and have significantly higher monthly sales than those subjects in any other treatment or control …

Does Child Sponsorship Have A Positive Impact On The Quality Of Life And Social Behavior Of Sponsored Children? Evidence From Indonesia, Mario Carrillo

Master's Theses

Relaxing an internal constraint of an individual at early stages of life is an approach that complements traditional policy interventions aimed to alleviate poverty. The Compassion International child sponsorship program focuses their work on the emotional, social, and spiritual development of sponsored children. This study investigates the impacts of child sponsorship on the quality of life and social behavior of sponsored children using age-eligibility as an instrument for sponsorship, a time preference experiment and a trust game. The study looks specifically at self-esteem, optimism, social trust, educational outcomes, patience and reciprocity of 286 sponsored children and 234 non-sponsored children between …

The Business Of Coupons-Do Coupons Lead To Repeat Purchases?, Margaret Peacher Ross

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Does Child Sponsorship Have A Positive Impact On The Quality Of Life And Social Behavior Of Sponsored Children? Evidence From Indonesia, Mario Carrillo

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

Relaxing internal constraints of individuals at early stages of life is an approach that complements traditional policy interventions aimed to alleviate poverty. The Compassion International child sponsorship program focuses their work on the emotional, social, and spiritual development of sponsored children. This study uses age-eligibility as an instrument for sponsorship to investigate the impacts of child sponsorship on self-esteem, aspirational reference points, aspirational capital, reciprocity and patience. It also implements an innovative way of constructing summary indices using a method proposed by Anderson, M (2008). Results reveal child sponsorship does not have an effect on the sponsored children. In fact, …

The Business Of Coupons--Do Coupons Lead To Repeat Purchases?, Margaret Peacher Ross

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

Abstract:

In recent years, couponing has emerged as a pop-culture phenomenon. Businesses of all types are taking advantage of this resource by revamping their out-dated programs and turning them into something fresh to excite customers. However, many questions remain unanswered concerning the viability, profitability, and usefulness of coupons. This study is an analysis of the effectiveness of coupons in enticing return purchases in the soft-drink category. The dataset is comprised of household level grocery store transactions complied by dunnhumby for 2,500 households over a period of two years. An ordinary least squares regression technique is employed to analyze the dollar …

Investigating The Ability Of Pro-Social Emotions To Enhance Cooperative Behavior, Lucía A. Vergara Sobarzo

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This research investigates the use of pro-social emotions to improve cooperation. In particular, it tries to reconcile the results from Noussair and Tucker (2007) and Lopez et al. (2010). To reach this goal the experiment considers different degrees of revelation: no revelation, partial and full disclosure of information. Additionally, I use different microeconometric specifications to accommodate different hypothesis about the motivation of the subjects.

My results diverge from those of Lopez et al. because I find that revealing the decision of a single subject at random does not significantly increase cooperation, which is the main result of these authors. Also, …

The International Ipad Index: Price Variants Across Countries And Associated Population Factors, Laura A. Renfroe

Laura A Renfroe

The goal of this research was to determine which population factors were associated with iPad pricing differences across countries. Specifically, this paper measured the relationship between iPad prices in a given country and its U.S. dollar exchange rate, amount of income inequality, Gross Domestic Product per capita, luxury good sales growth, Individualism Index score, and population density. Panel data was collected for the iPad 2, the iPad Retina, and the iPad Mini tablets from 38 countries of varying geographic locations, economic paradigms, and political structures. The pooled data set yielded 114 observations in total. Regressing iPad price as a percent …

Consumer Preference Of Semi-Professional Trumpet Players, Mario Yuuji Harper

Mario Yuuji Harper

This project has taken data on the performance and price of trumpet players in the USU Caine college of performing arts. We analyzed this to see the instrument preferences of aspiring professional trumpet players. We have chosen two primary variables to determine this from. First, we find the sound signature produced by the instrument and the player. Second, we look at the type of music that the player is interested in. This is a seemingly simple relationship, but we have found it to be fraught with complication.

Resource Allocation, Affluence And Deadweight Loss When Relative Consumption Matters, Jesse A. Matheson, B. Curtis Eaton

Jesse A Matheson