Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Measuring Impacts Of Uncertainty, Irreversibility, And Loss Aversion On The Adoption Of Crop Canopy Sensors Among Nebraska Corn Producers, Brooks Ronspies

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding barriers to adoption of Precision Agricultural Technologies (PATs) is important to the growth of agricultural productivity, efficiency, and sustainability. This thesis proposes and evaluates a model for estimating the impact of uncertainty, irreversibility, and loss aversion on producers’ adoption of crop canopy sensors in order to explain adoption behavior that contradicts previous expectations about the conditions necessary for technology adoption. The model is evaluated using estimated statistical distributions of price and field characteristics designed to match observations of actual corn and nitrogen prices, and of conventional and crop canopy sensor based nitrogen application. Results from this model using expected …

Toward Car Free Key West, Mary Bishop

Journal of Transportation Demand Management Research

This paper explores the transportation problems created by the large volume of tourist arrivals to the island of Key West, Florida. A survey of visitors to the island was conducted to uncover their perspectives related to the barriers and benefits of various transportation modes in hopes to inform City staff on the development of transportation options that will meet the needs and desires of tourists. The results from 398 respondents revealed a variety of trends, including varying travel choices depending on the number of visits, where visitors were from, and arrival types. From these trends, priority groups for behavior change …

Designing Single-Family Residences: A Study Of The Positive Impact Of Interior Design In Creating New Home Value, Shawn M. Falcone

Interior Design Program: Student Creative Activity

This study seeks to demonstrate that interior designers should be included as primary stakeholders in the home construction market. The market demand for new single-family homes in America is a relative constant. The primary stake and role that land developers, architects, draftsman, home builders, bankers, appraisers, real estate agents, and buyers have in the home construction market is clear. What is less clear is the role in value an interior designer has in the home construction market. This thesis examines the impact designers have on home value when their expertise is utilized in space planning (i.e.: layout, function, room utilization, …

The Effects Of Geography And Proximity On Board Of Directors: An Exponential Random Graphs Approach, Panagiotis Giannakis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims at exploring how physical proximity, among other geographical elements, affects the synthesis of boards of directors, the decisions executives make, and, in general, organizations. Drawing on the rich literature in economic geography, these studies focus on re-evaluating the effects of geography on board of directors in the contemporary context characterized by significant technological advancements which is expected to minimize the effects of distance.

The first paper evaluates the geographic proximity effects on the likelihood of board interlock ties creation, while controlling for endogenous network processes. Additionally, all proposed network specifications are simulated in order to assess the …

Essays In Microeconomics, Teng Ma

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays of different topics in microeconomics.

Chapter 1 investigates the effect of environmental uncertainty over the issue of resource allocation in a common pool resources setting. This chapter provides a model of how agents allocate resource among abatement technology, production, and saving with an endogenously determined uncertain damage. The results of a laboratory experiment show a negative effect of uncertain damage on abatement technology adoption and a non-linear relationship between the investment in abatement technology and the self reported risk aversion. Contrary to the “common belief” that greater risk averse agents invest more in abatement …

Fields And Consumer Groups: The Layered And Overlapping Roles Of Culture, Brandon James Mcalexander

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first essay investigates Bourdieu’s conceptualization of fields and its use in the marketing literature. It suggests that fields do not exist in isolation, but rather work together in a number of different possible configurations. Fields are reconceptualized as dominated, overlapped, unrelated, contrasted, and co-constituted, rather than completely distinct and opens a new theoretical space for interpretive researchers in marketing. The second essay is a descriptive ethnography of a local fab lab. The essay describes in rich detail the ways in which new skills are developed in a shared work environment, and contextualizes the findings using practice theory as a …

Poultry Labeling: Knowledge, Perceptions, And Preferences Among Adolescents, Eleni L. Parsons

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge, perceptions, and preferences of adolescents in regard to the labeling of poultry products. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) and Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) were used to display the relationship of perceptions, attitude, and behavior intentions. Quantitative data was collected in a descriptive research design. The population included youth, aged 14 – 18 years, involved in the Arkansas 4-H State O’Rama competition (N = 400). The sample (n = 80) ensured a 90% confidence interval of the population. Data was collected by administering paper surveys that addressed four product labels …

Which Credence Production Attributes Do Consumers Prefer? The Case Of Milk, Emmanouil Petrakis

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The interest of consumers for non-traditional food production attributes like antibiotics free and animal welfare have made consumer preferences more complex. These new attributes, usually non-identifiable by inspection or experience of the product are called credence attributes. The objectives of this study are to analyze consumer preferences for milk production attributes by eliciting the relative importance of these attributes for consumers, and to identify possible sources of heterogeneity related to consumer characteristics and actual purchase data. The research method used to elicit consumer preferences is Paired Comparison Method. Consumers from California and Texas were administered the online survey questionnaire in …

How Does Identifying As Gluten-Free Impact Information Choice Regarding The Gluten-Free Diet?, Pratiksha Baishya

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The market for gluten-free products is a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States and has seen tremendous growth in the recent years. The retail sales of gluten-free foods in the United States almost tripled between 2011 and 2015, although rates of diagnosed gluten-related health problems have not risen. In addition to people who suffer from Celiac Disease, Wheat Allergy and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, there is a category or people known as PWAG (people who avoid gluten) who seem to have significantly contributed to this boom in the market for gluten-free foods. With more people choosing to adopt the gluten-free diet, …

Essays On Human Capital Formation In Developing Countries, Alexander Sergeevich Ugarov

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Differences in human capital explain approximately one-half of the productivity variation across countries. Therefore, we need to understand drivers of human capital accumulation in order to design successful development policies. My dissertation studies formation and use of human capital with emphasis on its less tangible forms, including skills, abilities and know-how.

The first chapter of my dissertation explores the effects of occupational and educational barriers on human capital stock and aggregate productivity. I find that students' academic skills have very small impact on occupational choice in most developing countries. This finding suggests a higher incidence of occupational barriers in developing …

The Ultimatum Game: An Introduction To Quantitative Literacy In A Social Justice Context, Robert G. Root

Numeracy

The Ultimatum Game is a two-person, multiple-strategy game widely used in the experimental social sciences to demonstrate the human propensity for costly punishment in response to inequitable treatment. The game serves to provide quantitative evidence for a diversity of fairness norms across cultures. The play of the game and its interpretation offer nuanced views of the nature and importance of quantitative literacy. Its use in a writing seminar connecting quantitative literacy and social justice is described.

Persuasion, Political Warfare, And Deterrence: Behavioral And Behaviorally Robust Models, William N. Caballero

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines game theory models in the context of persuasion and competition wherein decision-makers are not completely rational by considering two complementary threads of research. The first thread of research pertains to offensive and preemptively defensive behavioral models. Research in this thread makes three notable contributions. First, an offensive modeling framework is created to identify how an entity optimally influences a populace to take a desired course of action. Second, a defensive modeling framework is defined wherein a regulating entity takes action to bound the behavior of multiple adversaries simultaneously attempting to persuade a group of decision-makers. Third, an …

Tax Uncertainty And Business Activity, Jungho Lee, Jianhuan Xu

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the extent to which uncertainties about tax policies affect business activities. We develop a statewide tax-uncertainty measure (TU measure) and show that it captures state corporate tax uncertainty. By comparing adjacent counties across state borders, we show that increasing tax uncertainty by one standard deviation (a 30% increase in the TU measure) leads to a 0.17% point per-year decrease in the growth rate of establishments over two years. The result holds after conducting a variety of robustness checks and is not likely to be driven by general state-policy uncertainties.

Estimating Auction Equilibria Using Individual Evolutionary Learning, Kevin James

Computational and Data Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

I develop the Generalized Evolutionary Nash Equilibrium Estimator (GENEE) library. The tool is designed to provide a generic computational library for running genetic algorithms and individual evolutionary learning in economic decision-making environments. Most importantly, I have adapted the library to estimate equilibria bidding functions in auctions. I show it produces highly accurate estimates across a large class of auction environments with known solutions. I then apply GENEE to estimate the equilibria of two additional auctions with no known solutions: first-price sealed-bid common value auctions with multiple signals, and simultaneous first-price auctions with subadditive values

The Unpredictable Positive Effects Of Sports Gambling: Gamblers Think Losing Feels Worse Than It Actually Feels, Guy Voichek, Nathan Novemsky

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Implications statement

Gamblers underestimate how much fun small wagers add to enjoying sports events. They think losing will feel worse than it really does. Simple reminder can correct this misprediction.

Abstract

When considering whether to gamble on a sporting event, people may ask themselves how winning or losing will affect their experience. In a series of four experiments, we find that people under-appreciate the positive effect of gambling on watching sporting events, in a way that causes them to under-value the opportunity to place a small stakes gamble. While participants predict that a gamble will enhance or diminish an experience …

Does Near Win Affect People's Investment Behavior?, Jia Yuan

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Near win is a special kind of failure that comes closely to actual success. It shows up frequently in people’s investment behavior. Only a few studies have researched on the relation between near win and its impact on the future investment. And in the literature, there are conflicting results on this issue. In this paper, we examine the effect of near win on people’s investment amount by exploiting a unique panel individual level lottery purchase data with over 100,000 players which trace each of their purchases for several months. We find that people who have experienced a near win would …

Gambling Behavior In Controlled Laboratory Experiments, Don Ross, J. Todd Swarthout

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

We designed a slot machine interface to study gambling behavior over real monetary amounts in a controlled laboratory environment. The interface allowed us to study the effect of multiple playlines compared to single playlines, the use of abstract tokens instead of allowing the gambler to see expenditures and payoffs in a natural currency, the effect of “near miss” displays on subjective beliefs about the chances of winning, and the effect of “wins disguised as losses” on gambling behavior. We measured the risk preferences of each subject, allowing for probability weighting and loss aversion, as well as the evolution of subjective …

Competition And Cooperation In Polygynous & Monogamous Households: Experimental Evidence From Sierra Leone, Bethany Gerdemann

Master's Theses

Competition and cooperation in polygynous households have both been widely documented across various disciplines. There is contradictory evidence as to whether these interpersonal dynamics produce better or worse outcomes for the household. This study uses a competitiveness game and a series of dictator games to measure competition and cooperation within households and between marriage types. Results show that there are key differences between monogamy and polygyny. Monogamous women compete less with their husbands than stranger and less in comparison to polygynous women. Monogamous spouses are more likely to forgo economic opportunities than polygynous spouses and have a greater preference for …

The Effect Of Disability Status On Parental Input: A Study From India, Susann Skjoldhorne

Master's Theses

Human capital has for a long time been an important factor in economic growth theory. Previous literature shows a strong connection between parental input and the level of human capital attained by a child. The investment in child health and education has a positive effect on building human capital. When resources are scarce the allocation of resources will affect the opportunities that a child is given to achieve their potential. Gender preferences, birth order, and disabilities could all be factors that explain how parents chose to allocate their resources. Previous studies show that the distribution of parental input based on …

The Behavioral Determinants Of Well-Being In Sierra Leone, Madison Levine

Master's Theses

Ensuring the needs of individuals are met leads to a more prosperous economy. Healthy economic activity is dependent on a supported community of people. These people express different levels of happiness depending on where they come from and make behavioral choices every day influenced by their association with their community. Currently most subjective data have come from western educated industrialized rich and democratic (WEIRD) areas. These results are placed as generalizations across all other countries and are not giving an adequate representation of well-being for the population in non-WEIRD areas. Our study outlines an in-depth survey covering subjective well-being measurements …