Economic Behavior (economic + behavior)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


THE INVESTMENT GAME WITH ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION

METROECONOMICA, Issue 1 2006
Giorgio Coricelli
ABSTRACT We analyze the effects of introducing asymmetric information and expectations in the investment game (Berg et al., Games and Economic Behavior, 1995, 10, 122,42). In our experiment, only the trustee knows the size of the surplus. Subjects' expectations about each other's behavior are also elicited. Our results show that average payback levels increase with the average amount sent. Asymmetric information does not reduce the amounts sent and returned, as compared with previous experimental studies. The first movers' choices increase with their expectations about the second movers' payback, whose choices depend in turn on the difference between expected and actual amounts received. [source]


CULTURAL DIVERSITY, DISCRIMINATION, AND ECONOMIC OUTCOMES: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

ECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 2 2007
PAUL J. FERRARO
Does cultural diversity affect economic outcomes? We develop an experimental framework that complements ongoing research on this question. We vary the ethnic mix of bargaining sessions to study intercultural interactions among members of U.S. Hispanic and Navajo cultures. We control for demographic differences in our subject pools and elicit beliefs directly in order to differentiate between statistical discrimination and preference-based discrimination. Hispanic and Navajo subjects behave differently, and their behavior is affected by the ethnic composition of the experimental session. Our experimental framework can shed light on economic behavior and outcomes in societies of mixed ethnicity, race, and religion. (JEL C78, C90, Z10) [source]


TOWARD A SEMIOTIC THEORY OF CHOICE AND OF LEARNING

EDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 3 2006
Andrew Stables
Such a view, Stables and Gough argue, has the potential to displace or circumvent essentially Cartesian models currently dominant within learning theory (cognitivism and responses to it) and within neoclassical economics (rational choice and responses to it). It thus enables synergies between theories of learning and of economic behavior, allowing for greater consistency in thinking about (but not necessarily prescribing for) both educational policy and provision, on the one hand, and curriculum and pedagogy, on the other. In addition, the authors claim that giving semiotics a foundational role in educational thinking provides a basis for the broader development of liberal political thought within a postmodern cultural context. [source]


Windfall and Socially Distributed Willpower: The Psychocultural Dynamics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in a Bengkulu Village

ETHOS, Issue 1-2 2002
Assistant Professor Daniel M. T. Fessler
Rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs) occur in myriad forms around the world. ROSCAs promote saving and make capital available. However, psychocultural factors distinct from monetary concern make both the existence of ROSCAs possible and participation in them attractive. This article analyzes the arisan, a ROSCA in Bengkulu, Sumatra. Psychocultural factors that inhibit mobility and prevent cheating make the arisan feasible. The arisan is popular because, through a process of socially distributed willpower congruent with familiar mechanisms of behavior regulation, it aids individuals in overcoming a weak ability to defer gratification. The arisan also allows individuals to sidestep prescribed sharing by exploiting the same values of reciprocity. Part of the arisan's appeal lies in its ability to create rewarding experiences by evoking both the culturally marked event of obtaining a windfall and the related thrill of gambling. This analysis demonstrates that economic behavior must be understood in the context of the culturally patterned motives that shape action. [source]


Labor Migration, Remittances and Household Income: A Comparison between Filipino and Filipina Overseas Workers,

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2005
Moshe Semyonov
The major purpose of the research is to examine gender differences in patterns of labor market activity, economic behavior and economic outcomes among labor migrants. While focusing on Filipina and Filipino overseas workers, the article addresses the following questions: whether and to what extent earnings and remittances of overseas workers differ by gender; and whether and to what extent the gender of overseas workers differentially affects household income in the Philippines. Data for the analysis were obtained from the Survey of Households and Children of Overseas Workers (a representative sample of households drawn in 1999,2000 from four major "labor sending" areas in the Philippines). The analysis focuses on 1,128 households with overseas workers. The findings reveal that men and women are likely to take different jobs and to migrate to different destinations. The analysis also reveals that many more women were unemployed prior to migration and that the earnings of women are, on average, lower than those of men, even after controlling for variations in occupational distributions, country of destination, and sociodemographic attributes. Contrary to popular belief, men send more money back home than do women, even when taking into consideration earnings differentials between the genders. Further analysis demonstrates that income of households with men working overseas is significantly higher than income of households with women working overseas and that this difference can be fully attributed to the earnings disparities and to differences in amount of remittances sent home by overseas workers. The results suggest that gender inequal- [source]


I Can't Get No Satisfaction,Necessity Entrepreneurship and Procedural Utility

KYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 2 2009
Joern Block
SUMMARY We study a unique sample of 1,547 nascent entrepreneurs in Germany and analyze which factors are associated with their self-reported satisfaction regarding their start-up. Our study identifies a new facet of procedural utility and offers new insights about the motivations and goals of nascent entrepreneurs. Most importantly, we identify a group of nascent entrepreneurs that ,cannot get satisfaction' with their start-up,not because their start-up fails to deliver financial returns, but because they did not choose to become entrepreneurs in the first place. This group of unsatisfied entrepreneurs includes individuals starting a business after a period of long-term unemployment and those individuals with a lack of better employment alternatives (necessity entrepreneurs). In addition, we provide additional evidence for the importance of both financial and non-financial incentives of entrepreneurs. While financial success is the most important determinant of start-up satisfaction, achievement of independence and creativity is also highly important. Our results emphasize the relevance of procedural utility for understanding economic behavior. We show that the process leading to a decision has an impact on the later satisfaction with the outcome of that decision. [source]


Contradictions, Law, and State Socialism

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 4 2000
Joachim J. Savelsberg
The relationship of law to antagonisms and contradictions within state socialism is explored from a Weberian and a Marxian perspective. Examining legislation, court decision making, legal control of economic behavior, and law enforcement reveals contradictions between (I) a radical participatory ideology versus muted or extinct civil society; (2) the ideology of comprehensive planning versus the impotence of law; (3) strategies aiming at total control of public life versus the emergence of a niche society outside the reach of the state; (4) regulatory norms versus the functional necessity of norm-breaking behavior; (5) reliance on a revolutionary sense of justice versus the cultivation of "doublethought"; (6) a program of total control of economic behavior versus the emergence of deviant, even criminal, forms of organization to fulfill functionally necessary but ideologically unapproved economic tasks; and finally, (7) two distinct practices of law, responsive or postliberal versus repressive. Yet, contradictions typically did not lead through conflict to subsequent reform during the state socialist era, as conflicts were repressed. When reforms were attempted, they furthered conflict and system breakdown. [source]


The Moral Economy of Tobacco

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2009
David Griffith
ABSTRACT Even faced with overwhelming evidence that tobacco threatens human health, along with economic developments undermining their status as independent producers, North Carolina tobacco farmers view tobacco production in ways congruent with a moral economy. A shift from independent to contract production of tobacco and the dismantling of government price supports have challenged this moral economy, converting tobacco producers into a quasi,working class dependent on tobacco companies while leading to fewer tobacco farms and an increase in the average tobacco farm's size. These changes signal a shift away from a moral economy of tobacco, although moral-economic dimensions remain. Producers today emphasize different moral dimensions of economic behavior, such as producing quality human beings, than during earlier eras, when moral-economic actors pressed for state intervention in economic crises. Moral-economic principles are not restricted to either non-Western or historical peoples but, rather, influence economic production and ideology in advanced capitalist settings today. [source]


Agroecosystem modeling and optimal economic decisions: Implications for sustainable agriculture

OPTIMAL CONTROL APPLICATIONS AND METHODS, Issue 1 2008
Craig A. Bond
Abstract We adapt a biogeochemical model of an agroecosystem to account for optimal economic behavior on the part of agricultural producers. Two institutional management regimes are considered: one in which a representative producer does not account for stock pollution caused by use of agricultural inputs, and one in which the externality is internalized. Comparative statics of the steady state of the former problem are analyzed in order to gain insight into the effects of potential policy and technological changes. Results show that a more realistic ecosystem component that includes nutrient cycling can qualitatively change optimal management practices relative to a one-state representation, potentially rendering systems ,unsustainable' under some criteria and leading to policy instruments that exacerbate, rather than mitigate, external damages or the resource base. Moreover, the qualitative effect of changes in model parameters are not necessarily uniform across different agricultural systems, implying that a prescription for the so-called ,sustainable' management under one system may have unintended consequences under another system. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Presidential Saber Rattling and the Economy

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2009
B. Dan Wood
Saber rattling is a prominent tool of the U.S. president's foreign policy leadership. Yet there has been no study of how presidential saber rattling affects international or domestic political outcomes. This study evaluates how presidential saber rattling affects U.S. economic behavior and performance. Theoretically, the study demonstrates that presidential rhetoric affects the risks that economic actors are willing to take, as well as the consequences of these resulting behaviors for U.S. economic performance. Using monthly time series running from January 1978 through January 2005, vector autoregression methods are applied to show that increased presidential saber rattling produces increased perceptions of negative economic news, declining consumer confidence, lower personal consumption expenditures, less demand for money, and slower economic growth. More broadly, the study demonstrates an important linkage between the president's two most important roles: foreign and economic policy leadership. The president's foreign policy pronouncements not only impact other nations, but also affect domestic economic outcomes. [source]


The Commodification of Ethnicity in an Asian Indian Economy in Chicago

CITY & SOCIETY, Issue 2 2003
Kathleen Bubinas
Sociological literature posits the. ethnic economy as a labor market that enables immigrants to procure employment through ethnic group membership. Recent scholarship documents employment practices that question this model of kinbased employment and ethnic loyalty and underscores the need to contextualize economic behavior within specific urban environments. The present paper contributes to this discussion by elucidating the role of ethnicity in an Asian Indian ethnic economy in Chicago. Data indicate that traditional forms of ethnic capital are less salient for employment than ethnic resources vital to maintaining an identity tied to commodity sectors distinctive to the Indian ethnic economy. [Asian Indian immigrants; Chicago labor market; ethnic capital; ethnic economy; immigrants] [source]