Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Book Review: Not Broke, But Badly Bent, Charles F. Angell

Bridgewater Review

Review of:

• Gary Rivlin, Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. - How the Working Poor Became Big Business
• Ellen Ruppel Shell, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

A Contractual Approach To Shareholder Oppression Law, Benjamin Means

Faculty Publications

According to standard law and economics, minority shareholders in closely held corporations must bargain against opportunism by controlling shareholders before investing. Put simply, you made your bed, now you must lie in it. Yet most courts offer a remedy for shareholder oppression, often premised on the notion that controlling shareholders owe fiduciary duties to the minority or must honor the minority's reasonable expectations. Thus, law and economics, the dominant mode of corporate law scholarship, appears irreconcilably opposed to minority shareholder protection, a defining feature of the existing law of close corporations.

This Article contends that a more nuanced theory of …

The Allocation Of Time And Goods: Three Essays On American Household Shopping Behavior, Jing Cai

Dissertations

Consumers’ shopping behavior connects market goods expenditure with the out of- market time allocation in their daily time use. This study is composed of three essays. In the first essay, data are collected from the American Time Use Survey and it is found that an individual’s time devoted to shopping is positively determined by opportunity cost of time. Grocery shopping and other shopping, as two distinct types of shopping, react differently to a series of individual and household characteristics as well as by seasons. The corresponding marginal effects also differentiate between shopping time, leisure time, and home production time. In …

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

Economics Faculty Publication Series

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. …

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. …

Institutional Structure And Decision Making In Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The study here presented reviews the institutional structure of the Sudanese government. Truly, though it is stigmatized as totalitarian, the structure is phenotypically perfect. Ministry of Ministries council is supposed to cater for analyzing data concerning ministries performance, drawing strategic planning, executing them through ministries and conduct the follow-ups. Department of decision-making was created and packages for data collection and analyses were improvised. However, all these structures seem skeletal as the final decisions structurally seem to be lost between the Presidency Institution and the executive institutions. An introduced flowing chart indicates that the cycle of all decisions end up at …

The International Society And The Sudanese National Disintegration, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The political crisis of Sudan is amplified everyday with the expansion of civil conflict from Darfur to Southern Kordofan state. The inevitable secession of Southern Sudan is threatened by the chronic crisis of Abyei pocket between the north and the south that saw open war between the two opponents; the Sudanese army and Popular Liberation of Sudan. Nevertheless, the Attorney General of the International Criminal Court, Ocambo vocalizes more concerns of humanitarian sufferings and war crimes that he claims to be continuing despite of peaceful negotiations. Such situation seems irrational with the de facto state of war that currently prevails …

The Impact Of Tribal Structure On The Economic Parameters And Conflicts Between North And South Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The crisis of Greater Darfur Region of Sudan extends to other regions as the South Sudan prepares for secession next July 2011. In the past eight years Sudan's crisis in Darfur was amplified by global news media all over the world. Civil conflict erupted, developed into armed rebellions and open uncontrolled war that enveloped the whole region. The current inflamed undecided and unmarked future borders between the south and north are also facing growing tensions. In this current paper we present some information on what we see as the seeds of conflicts with complicated tribal structures in both sides and …

Letter To Deputy Administrator Blum (Cms) On Medicare Auction, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

Fend For Sudan Unity, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Sudan is unified as a country by many bonds that are also reasons for it disintegration. From the year 2005 where Nivasha Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South parts, to 2011 the efforts of dividing the country were evident. From 2005, many analysts, tried to warn of the coming consequences of the Southern part secession. There were calls for improvements of the current regime's totalitarianism, open the doors for democracy, sharing people in power and decision making and amending human standards and freedom. However, all calls fell on deaf ears. The Darfur crisis accelerated and the regime clutch …

International Trade, Structural Deformations And Hegemony In Islamic And Arabic Countries, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed, Dr. Mohamed A. Osman

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Contemporary world economic situation seems gloomy with the shadows of recession in many big economies. There attempts to rectify that situation with domestic restructuring and improvements in social parameters. However, it is imperative that holistic approaches should be reviewed whereas part of them are helping developing economies to improve productivity and expand their exports and imports. The books reviews issues of international trade as presented in theories and de facto applications. Historical backgrounds are analyzed to emphasize their impacts on the present situations. Within the parameters discussed are crusades and ensuing colonization. All these foot prints are still engraved in …

State Institutionalization, Governance And Decision Making In Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The study here presented reviews the institutional structure of the Sudanese government. Truly, though it is stigmatized as totalitarian, the structure is phenotypically perfect. Ministry of Ministries council is supposed to cater for analyzing data concerning ministries performance, drawing strategic planning, executing them through ministries and conduct the follow-ups. Department of decision-making was created and packages for data collection and analyses were improvised. However, all these structures seem skeletal as the final decisions structurally seem to be lost between the Presidency Institution and the executive institutions. An introduced flowing chart indicates that the cycle of all decisions end up at …

Sex Ratios, Divorce Laws And The Marriage Market, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

We show how an interaction between the skewness of the sex ratio and the jump in divorce rates after a liberalization in divorce laws can obtain in a model of marriage market matching with non-transferable utility. This model is partly motivated by a significant cross-country correlation between these two variables. We also find that men’s hopes or fears about women’s marriage market odds are self-confirming under mutual consent, resulting in multiple equilibria. The multiplicity vanishes with a more skewed sex ratio or a liberalization of divorce laws. Our work sheds some light on the possible implications of divorce liberalization and …

Group Reputation, Anonymous Matching, And External Monitoring In A Model Of Corruption, Huan Wang, Yi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We explore what group reputation is and model its formation and evolution. Based solely on group signals, we define a player’s group reputation as the belief that others have about the characteristics of the group the player belongs to. A model of group reputation of civil servants with anonymous matching and external monitoring is constructed to characterize the strategic behavior of potential bribers and civil servants, the corresponding levels of corruption, possible anti-corruption policies, and the effects of these policies. Our results indicate that as there are two types of corruption behavior of civil servants: accepting bribes and dereliction of …

Banks' Reserves Restrictions And Macroeconomic Parameters Of Sudanese Economy (2007-2009), Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

The paper analyzes the impacts of Islamic and conventional Banks reserves' restrictions in Sudan. Comprehensively, those restrictions are necessary for health banks, performance and the viability of the macroeconomic performance in any country. The selected period of the analysis (2007-2009) is vital to study impacts of the Global Financial Crisis on the Sudanese economy. The paper introduces available data on banks institutions, macroeconomic policies and the central Bank of Sudan considering its part on controlling money supply and demand besides drawing policies for banks behaviors. It is conceivable from my conclusions here that there are conflicts between conventional and Islamic …

Men In Black: The Impact Of New Contracts On Football Referees’ Performances, Babatunde Buraimo, Alex Bryson, Rob Simmons

Dr Babatunde Buraimo

No abstract provided.

Reducing Healthcare Costs Requires Good Market Design, Peter Cramton, Brett Katzman

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract For Smoking Cessation, Xavier Giné, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Zinman

Dartmouth Scholarship

We designed and tested a voluntary commitment product to help smokers quit smoking. The product (CARES) offered smokers a savings account in which they deposit funds for six months, after which they take a urine test for nicotine and cotinine. If they pass, their money is returned; otherwise, their money is forfeited to charity. Of smokers offered CARES, 11 percent took up, and smokers randomly offered CARES were 3 percentage points more likely to pass the 6-month test than the control group. More importantly, this effect persisted in surprise tests at 12 months, indicating that CARES produced lasting smoking cessation. …

Economic Crisis And External Trade In Sudan, Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Professor Issam A.W. Mohamed

Nowadays, Sudan suffers severe financial crisis with the eminent demise of 75% of its oil revenues that represented over 90% of its foreign currency after the secession of its Southern part after a constitutional referendum. The compensatory revenues generating economic sectors are not able in the short, medium or runs to function due to the lack/diminished infrastructures. Hard currency exchange rates have soured against the domestic one and inflation sky-rocketed with severe recession grasping the economic cycle in the country which assess logic assumptions of stagflation. Reforming Sudan's foreign trade sector is essential though it will not replace oil revenues …

Letter From 167 Concerned Auction Experts On Medicare Competitive Bidding Program, Peter Cramton

Peter Cramton

No abstract provided.

The Covariance Sign Of Transformed Random Variables With Applications To Economics And Finance, Martin Egozcue

Martin Egozcue

No abstract provided.

Overview Of The Four Pillars Of The Banking Reforms., Samuel A. Oni

Bullion

The reports of the risk assessment exercise formed the basis of the intervention by the CBN in some banks and the introduction of the four pillar reform programme, to guarantee the safety and soundness of the banking system. The four pillars of the banking system reforms, which is the main subject, are as follows: Enhancing the quality of banks; Establishing financial stability; Enabling healthy financial sector evolution; and Ensuring that the financial sector contributes to the real economy.

Rebuilding Confidence In Nigerian Banks: The Challenge Of Good Corporate Governance And Professionalism., Uju M. Ogubunka

Bullion

The Nigerian Banking industry which is still evolving, has great potentials for positively impacting on the developing economy with over a hundred and forty million (140 million) people. Without a doubt, the industry has made noticeable progress and positive impact since its birth in the early 1890s, it would have achieved more had it not been bedevilled by occasional crisis. incidences of bank crisis in Nigeria, like in other jurisdictions, had led to bank shake-ups, failures and subsequent liquidations. Those outcomes gave rise to serious erosion of stakeholders' confidence in banking institutions and the system with far-reaching negative consequences for …

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

A New Cost-Benefit And Rate Of Return Analysis For The Perry Preschool Program: A Summary, James Heckman, Seong Moon, Rodrigo Pinto, Peter A. Savelyev

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning discuss the effects and cost-effectiveness of the most influential model, state, and federally funded programs, policies, and practices. These include Head Start, Early Head Start, the WIC nutrition program, Nurse Family Partnership, and Perry Preschool as well as school reform strategies. This volume provides a unique multidisciplinary approach to understanding …

Prospect Theory, Indifference Curves, And Hedging Risks, Udo Broll, Martin Egozcue, Wing Keung Wong, Ricardas Zitikis

Martin Egozcue

The prospect theory is one of the most popular decision-making theories. It is based on S-shaped utility functions, unlike the von Neumann and Morgenstern (NM) theory, which is based on concave utility functions. The S-shaped functions bring challenges, and extensions and generalizations of the NM theory into the prospect theory are not always possible. For example, in the prospect theory, the monotonicity of indifference curves depends on the underlying mean, unlike in the NM theory. Risk-hedging deci- sions also become more complex within the prospect theory. In this paper, we discuss these topics and establish general results concerning certain covariances …

Factors Effecting Job Satisfaction Of Employees In Pakistani Banking Sector, Ahmed Imran Hunjra, Muhammad Irfan Chani, Sher Aslam, Muhammad Azam, Kashif -Ur- Rehman

Muhammad Irfan Chani

Consumer Willingness To Pay For E85, Denise A. Skahan

Masters Theses

Concerns regarding energy security, resource sustainability, and environmental protection have heightened interests in renewable fuels and sparked the research and development of ethanol as a transportation fuel. This study examines consumers’ willingness to pay for ethanol from various potential feedstocks; corn, switchgrass and wood wastes. Data was collected via a survey of fuel consumers across the United States in 2009. Results show that consumers have a preference for E85 (a fuel blend with 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) from corn, switchgrass and wood wastes compared to E0 (gasoline) and a preference for E85 from switchgrass and wood wastes, …

Advertising Collusion In Retail Markets, Kyle Bagwell, Gea M. Lee

Research Collection School Of Economics

We analyze non-price advertising by retail firms, when the firms are privately informed about their respective costs of production. In a static advertising game, an advertising equilibrium exists in which lower-cost firms select higher advertising levels. In this equilibrium, informed consumers rationally employ an advertising search rule in which they buy from the highest-advertising firm since lower-cost firms also select lower prices. In a repeated advertising game, colluding firms face a trade-off: the use of advertising can promote productive efficiency, but only if sufficient current or future advertising expenses are incurred. At one extreme, if firms pool at zero advertising, …

Patrilocal Exogamy As A Monitoring Mechanism: How Inheritance And Residence Patterns Co-Evolve, Brishti Guha

Research Collection School Of Economics

Economists have modeled inheritance norms assuming the pattern of post-marital residence is exogenous. We model the co-evolution of these two institutions, examining how patrilineal inheritance and patrilocal exogamy reinforced each other in a patrilineal-patrilocal equilibrium. We also derive conditions for a matrilineal-matrilocal equilibrium. The endogenous choice of the old to monitor the sexual behavior of the young women who reside with them, thereby affecting the paternity confidence of the young women’s husbands and hence their incentives, is crucial. Our model fits the data on the relationship between inheritance, residence patterns and paternity confidence, and on the importance of paternity uncertainty.