Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Four Essays Of Environmental Risk-Mitigation, Chiradip Chatterjee

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Expected damages of environmental risks depend both on their intensities and probabilities. There is very little control over probabilities of climate related disasters such as hurricanes. Therefore, researchers of social science are interested identifying preparation and mitigation measures that build human resilience to disasters and avoid serious loss. Conversely, environmental degradation, which is a process through which the natural environment is compromised in some way, has been accelerated by human activities. As scientists are finding effective ways on how to prevent and reduce pollution, the society often fails to adopt these effective preventive methods. Researchers of psychological and contextual characterization …

Incentives To Improve Economic Conditions: A Field Experiment In Medellin, Colombia, Lauren Skora

Master's Theses

The motivation for this research is to replicate the Oakland based Family Independence Initiative (FII) and to test the components of this model. The FII program claims its success stems from a bottom-up approach structured around setting life-improving goals, mutual support groups, and small monetary incentives to achieve results. As the popularity of this program continues to gain momentum in the United States, we designed a field experiment to measure the impact of incentives on goal achievement and economic conditions as well as the overall impact of the FII model. We enrolled close to 200 small business owners in four …

Why Risk It? The Effect Of Risk And Time Preferences On Microfinance Loan Default, Nike Start

Nike Start

Microfinance is widely recognized as a powerful method for poverty alleviation. However, little is known about the characteristics of those who default on their loans. Understanding the behavior of borrowers is an important component of mitigating adverse selection and the moral hazard of lending. Both of these concepts embody some of the greatest challenges faced by microfinance institutions, and they provide the major motivation for this study. Accordingly, the main objective of this research is to investigate whether non-delinquent borrowers and delinquent borrowers of a microfinance institution reveal any difference in their level of risk preference and time preference. This …

Why Risk It? The Effect Of Risk And Time Preferences On Microfinance Loan Default, Nike Start

Master's Theses

Microfinance is widely recognized as a powerful method for poverty

alleviation. However, little is known about the characteristics of those who

default on their loans. Understanding the behavior of borrowers is an important

component of mitigating adverse selection and the moral hazard of lending. Both

of these concepts embody some of the greatest challenges faced by microfinance

institutions, and they provide the major motivation for this study. Accordingly,

the main objective of this research is to investigate whether non-delinquent

borrowers and delinquent borrowers of a microfinance institution reveal any

difference in their level of risk preference and time preference. This …

An Index Of Macroeconomic Performance, Leo L. Liyeung

Senior Theses and Projects

There exists an abundance of economic indicators and ways to interpret macroeconomic data. While the rates of unemployment, inflation, GDP growth, etc all give important insights into the performance of an economy, all these indicators are, at best, incomplete ones that fail to look at the bigger picture of the economy as a whole.

Several macroeconomists have looked into the development of an Index of Macroeconomic Performance (IMP) that provides a comprehensive account of economic performance, the formulation of which allows for straightforward comparisons of macroeconomic performance internationally and intertemporally. Conventional indicators like unemployment, inflation, and GDP growth are taken …

Not-So-Strong Evidence For Gender Differences In Risk, Julie Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

In their article "Strong Evidence for Gender Differences in Risk Taking," Gary Charness and Uri Gneezy (2012) review a number of experimental studies regarding investments in risky assets, and claim that these yield strong evidence that females are more risk averse than males. This study replicates and extends their article, demonstrating that its methods are highly problematic. While the methods used would be appropriate for categorical, individual-­‐level differences, the data reviewed are not consistent with such a model. Instead, modest differences (at most) exist only at aggregate levels, such as group means. The evidence in favor of gender difference is …

Wat Is Coöperatief Ondernemen?, Lieve Jacobs, Wim Van Opstal

Wim Van Opstal

De discussie van wat een echte coöperatie is en hoort te zijn, is haast zo oud als de coöperatieve beweging zelf en lijkt soms wel op de zoektocht naar de heilige graal. Toch beschikt de internationale coöperatieve beweging, vertegenwoordigd door de Internationale Coöperatieve Alliantie (ICA), over een referentiekader met een gemeenschappelijke definitie, principes en waarden. Dit referentiekader is zelf het compromis tussen vele verschillende visies en stromingen binnen het coöperatieve denken. Net daarom is het verstandig om dit eerder als een kompas in plaats van als een keurslijf te beschouwen. In deze bijdrage illustreren we de praktische grondslagen en gevolgen …

Coöperaties In België. Top 100 Van De Grootste Belgische Coöperatieve Vennootschappen In 2011, Wim Van Opstal

Wim Van Opstal

In deze publicatie presenteren we de top 100 van de grootste Belgische coöperatieve vennootschappen in 2011. We bespreken de grootste coöperaties volgens hun economische activiteit en geven zo een venster op de rijke diversiteit aan coöperatieve initiatieven in ons land.

The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Behavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly “robust” claim that “women are more risk averse than men” is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.