Behavioral Economics Commons^™

Alleviating Social Disadvantages Of Rapid Economic Growth: A Case For Conditional Cash Transfer (Cct) Application In Old Siam, Anastasia Kostioukova

CMC Senior Theses

The ongoing conflict between Thailand’s red shirt and yellow shirt parties is not purely political. This tension is rooted in a renewed awareness of regional economic and social inequality, a byproduct of rapid economic growth in the past. This thesis seeks to understand the overall consequences of unequal economic development in Thailand, as the rationale for asserting that a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program is an appropriate policy tool for the ongoing reconciliation efforts.

F. A. Hayek’S Sympathetic Agents, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

In what follows, we show first that, for Hayek, behavior within the small group – the “small band or troop,” or “micro-cosmos” – is correlated, resulting from agents who are sympathetic one with another. We shall argue that sympathy in this context for Hayek entails the projection of one’s preferences onto the preferences of others. With such correlated agency as the default in small-group situations, Hayek attempts to explain the transition from small groups to a larger civilization. We consider the role of projection in Hayek’s system at length, because projection from the local group characterized by a well-defined preference …

Double-Edged Transparency In Teams, Parimal Bag, Nona Pepito

Research Collection School Of Economics

In a team project with significant complementarities between various players' individual tasks, news of early success by some encourages others to push ahead with their own tasks while lack of success has the opposite effect. This ex-post disparity in incentives created gives rise to two differing implications, ex ante, for an ideal team transparency. Sometimes it is better to commit to complete secrecy within the team of the various participants' interim progress as it mitigates the negative effect of failures. In some other situations, commitment to full disclosure is better as players are then encouraged to be proactive by exerting …

Quasi-Option Value Under Strategic Interactions, Tomoki Fujii, Ryuichiro Ishikawa

Research Collection School Of Economics

We consider a simple two-period model of irreversible investment under strategic interactions between two players. In this setup, we show that the quasi-option value may cause some conceptual difficulties. In case of asymmetric information, decentralized investment decisions fail to induce first-best allocations. Therefore a regulator may not be able to exercise the option to delay the decision to develop. We also show that information-induced inefficiency may arise in a game situation and that under certain assumptions inefficiency can be eliminated by sending asymmetric information to the players, even when the regulator faces informational constraints. Our model is potentially applicable to …

Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty And Repurchase: Some Evidence From Apparel Consumers, Tamilla Curtis, Russell Abratt, Paul Dion, Dawna L. Rhoades

Management, Marketing and Operations - Daytona Beach

While customer satisfaction, loyalty and repurchase intent are some of the most researched areas in marketing and consumer behavior, there is little certainty on the direction and strength of these relationships. After completing a literature review, this study develops a model of loyalty dimensions, satisfaction and repurchase intent. A sample of 499 respondents who had purchased jeans was interviewed in the Southeastern United States. Results were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results of nine hypothesized relationships are discussed. A significant positive relationship exists between commitment and repurchase/repurchase intent. Some surprising findings also emerged as the model was modified. It …

The Creativity Effect, Christopher Buccafusco, Christopher Jon Sprigman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article reports the first experiment to demonstrate the existence of a valua­tion anomaly associated with the creation of new works. To date, a wealth of social science research has shown that the least amount of money that owners of goods are willing to accept to part with their possessions is often far greater than the amount that purchasers would be willing to pay to obtain them. This phenomenon, known as the endowment effect, may create substantial inefficiencies in many markets. Our experi­ment demonstrates the existence of a related "creativity effect." We show that creators of works value their creations …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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.

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, …

Investor Knowledge And Investment Barriers., Steven Doman

Student Works (2010-2019)

The world of investing in the various products related to the stock and bond markets is confusing for many people. This is a problem since financial investments often represent a large portion of an individual’s personal assets. As regulators begin to search for answers about what caused the economic crisis of 2008-2009 and try to pass regulations that will prevent it from happening again, investors will continue to look to the products of investment firms to help accomplish their financial goals. Unfortunately for investors, many will continue to choose investments based on very limited personal knowledge. Investment firms will in …

Financial Illiteracy: Prevalence, Consequences, And Solutions, Gerald Matasy

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

As Americans have become increasingly responsible for their own financial security their ability to make financial decisions in their best interests has certainly grown in importance. The focus of this paper is to determine what role financial literacy plays in making optimal financial decisions and maintaining economic stability. Using mostly research from other studies and some original research, this paper seeks to examine the level of financial literacy among the general population and what the implications are for the general lack of literacy. What I find is that individuals who have lower levels of financial literacy generally make poorer financial …

Getting Past 'Rational Man/Emotional Woman': Comments On Research Programs In Happiness Economics And Interpersonal Relations, Julie A. Nelson

Economics Faculty Publication Series

Orthodox neoclassical economics portrays reason as far more important than emotion, autonomy as more characteristic of economic life than social connection, and, more generally, things culturally and cognitively associated with masculinity as more central than things associated with femininity. Research from contemporary neuroscience suggests that such biases are related to certain automatic processes in the brain, and feminist scholarship suggests ways of getting beyond them. The “happiness” and “interpersonal relations” economics research programs have made substantial progress in overcoming a number of these biases, bringing into consideration by economists a wide range of phenomena which were previously neglected. Analysis from …