Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Against Game Theory, Gale M. Lucas, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Mark Turner

Faculty Scholarship

People make choices. Often, the outcome depends on choices other people make. What mental steps do people go through when making such choices? Game theory, the most influential model of choice in economics and the social sciences, offers an answer, one based on games of strategy such as chess and checkers: the chooser considers the choices that others will make and makes a choice that will lead to a better outcome for the chooser, given all those choices by other people. It is universally established in the social sciences that classical game theory (even when heavily modified) is bad at …

Behavioral Economics: Origins, Methodology And “Work Tools”, Daniel A. Monroy

Daniel A Monroy C

This paper has two main objectives: (i) The main objective is to propose a theoretical and methodological delimitation of the Behavioral Economics approach. In this point, the paper argues that such delimitation involves a permanent tension with the hypotheses of rational choice theory of human behavior. (ii) The secondary objective of the paper focuses on the methodology submitted, for this, we present a couple of case studies in order to explain and test such methodology. Furthermore, the case studies will allow us to determinate some work tools of the Behavioral Economics approach.

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 …

Do Ugly Criminals Receive Harsher Sentences? An Analysis Of Lookism In The Criminal Justice System, Kelly Beck

Business and Economics Honors Papers

For many years, researchers have attempted to find a link between beauty and labor market outcomes. Although many important findings have been noted in these studies, the beauty analysis utilized was a subjective measurement. This subjective method, while important, may have external factors creating bias in the rating itself. In this study, the impact of beauty is applied to criminals and their sentences. Using a computer based symmetry measurement tool, an objective beauty measurement will be utilized. This study will seek to uncover whether or not criminals who are less attractive, measured through facial symmetry, receive harsher prison sentences than …

Introduction To, Preferences And Rational Choice: New Perspectives And Legal Implications, Matthew D. Adler, Claire Finkelstein, Peter Huang

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mixed Signals: Rational-Choice Theories Of Social Norms And The Pragmatics Of Explanation, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The question of how societies secure cooperation and order in the absence of state enforced sanctions has long vexed law and economics scholars. Recently the concept of social norms--informally enforced rules of behavior--has occupied the attention of a large number of these theorists, who are concerned with understanding why economically rational actors would bother to follow rules whose costs seem to outweigh their benefits. Because of the prestige (or at least trendiness) of law and economics, it seems that now everyone in the legal academy is talking about social norms. This burgeoning scholarship is closely related to a wider concern …

Book Review, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Reviewing, Incommensurability, Incomparability and Practical Reason (Ruth Chang ed., 1997)