Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Allowing Patients To Waive The Right To Sue For Medical Malpractice: A Response To Thaler And Sunstein, Tom Baker, Timothy D. Lytton

Timothy D. Lytton

This essay critically evaluates Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s proposal to allow patients to prospectively waive their rights to bring a malpractice claim, presented in their recent, much acclaimed book, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness. We show that the behavioral insights that undergird Nudge do not support the waiver proposal. In addition, we demonstrate that Thaler and Sunstein have not provided a persuasive cost-benefit justification for the proposal. Finally, we argue that their liberty-based defense of waivers rests on misleading analogies and polemical rhetoric that ignore the liberty and other interests served by patients’ tort law rights. …

Teleinvestmentevangelists: Celebrity, Ritual And Religion And The Quest To “Beat The Market”, E. Douglas, Mary Keller, Elton Mcgoun

Mary L Keller

Purpose – This paper aims to offer a cultural understanding of investor faith in stock picking despite overwhelming evidence questioning its efficacy. Why, in the face of very widely communicated findings calling into question the advice and assistance offered by financial professionals to help them pick stocks or manage their mutual funds, do so many people persist in these practices? The authors believe that the best way to understand investor faith in the efficacy of stock picking is through teleinvestmentevangelists such as Jim Cramer, whose fusion of celebrity and religion taps into the ritualistic elements of investment that usually lie …

Are Women Really More Risk-Averse Than Men? A Re-Analysis Of The Literature Using Expanded Methods, Julie Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

While a substantial literature in economics and finance has concluded that “women are more risk averse than men,” this conclusion merits investigation. After briefly clarifying the difference between making generalizations about groups, on the one hand, and making valid inferences from samples, on the other, this essay suggests improvements to how economists communicate our research results. Supplementing findings of statistical significance with quantitative measures of both substantive difference (Cohen's d, a measure in common use in non-­‐Economics literatures) and of substantive overlap (the Index of Similarity, newly proposed here) adds important nuance to the discussion of sex differences. These measures …

Voice Without Say: Why Capital-Managed Firms Aren’T (Genuinely) Participatory, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Why are most capitalist enterprises of any size organized as authoritarian bureaucracies rather than incorporating genuine employee participation that would give the workers real authority? Even firms with employee participation programs leave virtually all decision-making power in the hands of management. The standard answer is that hierarchy is more economically efficient than any sort of genuine participation, so that participatory firms would be less productive and lose out to more traditional competitors. This answer is indefensible. After surveying the history, legal status, and varieties of employee participation, I examine and reject as question-begging the argument that the rarity of genuine …

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 …

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.

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.

Mindscapes And Landscapes: Hayek And Simon On Cognitive Extension, Leslie Marsh

Leslie Marsh

Hayek’s and Simon’s social externalism runs on a shared presupposition: mind is constrained in its computational capacity to detect, harvest, and assimilate “data” generated by the infinitely fine-grained and perpetually dynamic characteristic of experience in complex social environments. For Hayek, mind and sociality are co-evolved spontaneous orders, allowing little or no prospect of comprehensive explanation, trapped in a hermeneutically sealed, i.e. inescapably context bound, eco-system. For Simon, it is the simplicity of mind that is the bottleneck, overwhelmed by the ambient complexity of the environmental. Since on Simon’s account complexity is unidirectional, Simon is far more ebullient about the prospects …

Poisoning The Well, Or How Economic Theory Damages, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Contemporary mainstream economics has widely “poisoned the well” from which people get their ideas about the relationship between economics and ethics. The image of economic life as inherently characterized by self-interest, utility- and profitmaximization, and mechanical controllability has caused many businesspeople, judges, sociologists, philosophers, policymakers, critics of economics, and the public at large to come to tolerate greed and opportunism, or even to expect or encourage them. This essay raises and discusses a number of counterarguments that might be made to the charge that current dominant professional practice is having negative ethical effects, as well as discussing some examples of …

Forced Displacement In Colombia, Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

No abstract provided.

Finger Lickin’ Good: An Analytical Investigation Into The Urban Diet, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

In this analysis, the origins, customs and implications of fast-food culture will be explored with important focus on the customs of fast-food urban eating. Research indicates that lower-income urban areas are more likely to consume fast-food. The high consumption of fast-food subsequently results in the development of social and economical implications, which include health implications, economic dilemmas, a disconnection between consumers and their consumption and issues of social classification. This analysis also explores the customs of fast-food culture of Pine Hills, Florida with added emphasis on Pine Hills’ cultural uniqueness.

El Individuo Y La Comunidad. Aeon J. Skoble, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

El Fracaso: Su Utilidad Personal Y Social, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The Role Of The Law In The Availability Of Public Transit And Affordable Housing In Atlanta’S West End, Elliott Lipinsky

ELLIOTT LIPINSKY

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation that administers federal funds and provides technical assistance for the support of locally operated public transit systems. MARTA / Atlanta metro area are part of FTA Region IV (the Southeast). FTA would be involved, for instance, in financing the federal grant monies discussed above. But actual regulation of operations (i.e., what MARTA does each day, or what MARTA will plan to do regionally) is more closely regulated by Georgia agencies.

Until recently, the Atlanta metropolitan area had no powerful central agency to coordinate regional transit. The …

Stigmergy 3.0: From Ants To Economies, Leslie Marsh, Margery Doyle

Leslie Marsh

No abstract provided.

Los Modelos De Equilibrio General: La Revisión De Chancelier Y Una Crítica A Debreu Y Mckenzie, Rodrigo Lopez-Pablos

Lopez-Pablos, Rodrigo

A revision on general equilibrium theory from an entropic perspective. JEL CLASSIFICATION: D50, O21, Z19

Free The Market. Peter J. Boettke. Spanish Translation, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

How Much Does A Belief Cost?: Revisiting The Marketplace Of Ideas, Gregory Brazeal

Gregory Brazeal

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is often credited with creating the metaphor of “the marketplace of ideas,” though he did not use the exact phrase and his argument for free speech was not based on distinctively economic reasoning. Truly economic investigations of the marketplace of ideas have progressed in step with developments and trends in the law and economics literature. These investigations have tended to be one-sided, with writers focusing primarily either on the production of ideas (for example, Posner) or their consumption (for example, behavioral law and economics), without considering in depth how producers and consumers interact. This may …

Natural Law Bibliography 1990-2010, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Antropología Filosófica Cristiana Y Economía De Mercado (Review). Revista Empresa Y Humanismo, Xiv/2, 2011, Pp. 121-127., Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

"Faraway So Close". Maestros Y Discípulos En La Era Digital, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The Call Of The Entrepreneur (Acton Media): Un Análisis, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Caring And Sharing. D.R. Lee. Spanish Translation, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Austrian School In 10 Propositions, By Peter J. Boettke, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Christianism And Liberalism. Conference Script. Diego De Covarrubias. San Pablo Ceu, Madrid, 12.12.2011, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Un Significativo Y Poco Difundido Discurso De Benedicto Xvi: El Mensaje A La Academia Pontificia De Ciencias Sociales Del Año 2011, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The Call Of The Entrepreneur (Acton Media): An Analysis, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Hayek's Philosophical Psychology, Leslie Marsh

Leslie Marsh

Hayek's philosophical psychology as set out in his The Sensory Order (1952) has, for the most part, been neglected. Despite being lauded by computer scientist grandee Frank Rosenblatt and by Nobel prize-winning biologist Gerald Edelman, cognitive scientists -- with a few exceptions -- have yet to discover Hayek's philosophical psychology. On the other hand, social theorists, Hayek's traditional disciplinary constituency, have only recently begun to take note and examine the importance of psychology in the complete Hayek corpus. This volume brings together for the first time state-of-the-art contributions from neuroscientists and philosophers of mind as well as economists and social …

Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson

Julie A. Nelson

Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …

Piratas Y Corsarios En La Era Digital, Mario Šilar, Alejandro Néstor García Martínez

Mario Šilar

http://www.unav.es/nuestrotiempo/es/temas/piratas-y-corsarios-en-la-era-digital