Behavioral Economics
   A Crash Course
    (under construction as knowledge/memes evolve)
This site maintained by
Joe Pomykala, Ph.D.
Department of Economics
Towson University
(Document last modified Thursday, September 09, 2004 22:10:31(Document last modified Thu, 09 Sep 2004 18:39:54 GMT)
Perception Illusions

There does not exist a good textbook on this newly emerging area of economics.  This collection of papers are a substitute.
Also see Colin Camerer's syllabus and reading list for his Behavioral Economics course at Caltech,
and Ananish Chaudhuri's Behavioral & Experimental Economics Page, et al.

What is Behavioral Economics?

Behavioral Economics is a newly emerging field in economics.  For more than a century the canonic model of decision making in economics had been based upon a rational economic agent homo economicus who simply maximized expected utility or happiness given a preference ordering over different states of the world, and thus human behavior could be reduced to an optimization problem solvable by differential calculus (given cardinality, but only ordinaliy is sufficient).  Behavioral economics considers human decision making to be more complex.  People have limitations in knowledge and cognitive ability.  Rationality may be considered bounded by such constraints.

The normative assumptions in economics describing human behavior had become increasingly challenged by descriptive models and empirical evidence showing that behavior was inconsistent with the canonic model, such being labeled as “irrational.”  For example, choices between identical states of the world depend upon reference points generating framing and endowment effects or inconsistent and non-transitive preferences.  Systematic bias or error exists in the decision making process as agents apply heuristics to economize on the decision making process.  Experimental economics in a variety of games has repeatedly demonstrated that observed behavior deviates from what is naively predicted by the canonic model or that people do not play calculated Nash equilibrium strategies drawn from the normative assumptions forming the mainstay of economics.

Behavioral economics is cross-disciplinary.  It may be considered the cross-roads blending of neoclassical economics (rational choice theory) and other social sciences, and also to a degree pure sciences such as biology, human behavioral ecology, and neuropsychology, to rectify inconsistencies and learn from alternative decision making models.  Behavioral economics is very closely akin to cognitive psychology.  Evolutionary psychology also adds to the theory of decision making.  Hunter gatherers did not settle down into agricultural communities until the last 10,000 years.  For most of human existence over a million years, market exchange was non-existant.  Both evolved cognitive abilities and preferences reflect such with innate abilities geared towards pure altruism as to contribute towards fitness or passing on genes to decendants, or reciprocal altruism as the earliest form of exchange over say the last 5 million years as opposed to modern market exchange occuring over less than 1% of humanoid existance.

Behavioral economics began with a debunking of neoclassical economic theory by psychologists such as Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, and experimental game theorists such as Vernon Smith.  However, ideas once considered outside the realm of economics, or descriptive "anomalies" contradicting the neoclassical model, have become accepted into mainstream economics with cross-disciplinary explanations under the new heading of “behavioral economics,” also evidenced by the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to Kahneman and Smith.  The Nobel Commission noted integrating “insights from psychological research into economic science, ... thereby laying the foundation for a new field of research” by demonstrating “how human decisions may systematically depart from those predicted by standard economic theory.”

Outline   (This is a partially complete working outline under construction.)     Abridged reading = Abridged reading.     Must reading.Must reading. = Must reading.

  1. Background
    1. Rational Choice in Neoclassical Economics - homo economicus
      1. Mathematical (or Axiomatic) definition by Alberto Bisin - NYU
      2. In words from ASBS
      3. Abridged - definition from SFB with links to terms
      4. Rationality as Process and as Product of Thought by Herbert A. Simon American Economic Review, Vol. 68, No. 2, (May, 1978), pp. 1-16.
      5. Economic Theory and Its Discontents (in Is Economic Theory With It?) by Vernon L. Smith American Economic Review, Vol. 64, No. 2, (May 1974), pp. 320-322
      6. Flaws in Homo economicus (misunderstanding of rationality since such is fully consistent with altruism and self-interest, but a few valid points)
    2. Bounded Rationality
      1. A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice by Herbert A. Simon Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Feb. 1955), pp. 99-118
      2. Theories of Decision-Making in Economics and Behavioral Science by Herbert A. Simon American Economic Review, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Jun. 1959), pp. 253-283
      3. Why Bounded Rationality? by John Conlisk Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun. 1996), pp. 669-700
      4. Bounded Rationality - definition from SFB in 6 sentences to summarize Herbert Simon 1957
      5. Bounded Rationality - definition from Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition in 11 paragraphs
    3. Rational Ignorance and Costly Information
    4. When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? by S. S. Iyengar and M. R. Lepper, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 79, (2000) pp. 995-1006, and also see The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz (2004) or op-ed summary A Nation of Second Guesses NYT (1/22/2004) and rebuttal comments in Multitudes In the Valley of Decision in Reason (1/28/2004)
    5. Abridged readingIntransitivity of Preferences by Amos Tversky, Psychological Review, Vol. 76, (1969) pp. 31-48
    6. Allias Paradox - Maurice Allais Le comportament de l'homme rationnel devant le risque: Critique des postulats de l'école Américaine, Econometrica Vol. 21, (1953), pp. 503-46 (additive lotteries), and similarly, Ellsberg's Paradox - Daniel Ellsberg Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms, Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 75, No. 4 (Nov. 1961), pp. 643-669 (drawing balls from urns); Both early works demonstrate violations of axiomatic assumptions w.r.t. independence or cancellation. 
      (Abridged readingFor quick examples of both Allias and Ellsberg's Paradoxes, see pp. 14-15 of this link courtesy of Richard Weber.)
  2. Overview
    1. Abridged readingThe Great Rationality Debate by Philip Tetlock and Barbara Mellers, Psychological Science, Vol. 13 No.1 (Jan. 2002), pp. 94-99
    2. Behavioral Economics, by Sendhil Mullainathan and Richard Thaler, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, (Sept. 2000)
    3. Abridged readingPsychology and Economics, by Matthew Rabin, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Mar. 1998), pp. 11-46
    4. Judgment and Decision Making, by Mellers, Schwartz, and Cooke, Annual Review of Psychology (1998) Vol. 49, pp, 447-77
  3. Reference Point (or Status Quo) Bias (Framing and Endowment Effects, and Anchoring)
    1. Framing Effects
      1. Must reading.Must reading.The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Science 211 (1981) pp. 453-458, or Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Journal of Business Vol. 59 No. 4 (Oct. 1986) pp. S251-S278
      2. Abridged readingPolitical Decision Making - Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice by George A. Quattrone and Amos Tversky, American Political Science Review, Vol. 82, No. 3. (Sept. 1988), pp. 719-736
      3. Discounts and Surcharges - Thaler, R.H. (1999) Mental Accounting Matters Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12, pp. 183-206 or Thaler, R. H. (1980) Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1, pp. 39–60.
      4. Taxation - Framing and Taxation: Normative Evaluation of Tax Policies Involving Household Composition and Edward J. McCaffery and Jonathan Baron (2003)
      5. Axiomatic Treatment - What have we learnt about Loss Aversion and Endowment Effects? Still an anomaly? by Patricio S. Dalton, working paper, (Feb. 2003)
      6. "Framing the Jury" by Matthew L. Spitzer, Daniel Kahneman, and Edward J. McCaffery, In Behavioral Economics and the Law (2000) Cass R. Sunstein, ed. or Framing the Jury: Cognitive Perspectives on Pain and Suffering Awards by Matthew L. Spitzer, Daniel Kahneman and Edward J. McCaffery Virginia Law Review Vol. 81 (1995), p. 1341
      7. Etc., Etc.
    2. Endowment Effects
      1. Abridged readingThe Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves, by Jack L. Knetsch, American Economic Review, Vol. 79, No. 5 (Dec. 1989), pp. 1277-84 (the Coffee Mug Experiment)
      2. Must reading.Must reading.Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias, by Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 193-206
      3. List - Econometrica
      4. Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem by Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard Thaler, Journal of Political Economy Vol. 98, No. 6, (Dec. 1990) pp. 1325–48
      5. Resolving Differences in willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept by J. F. Shogren, S. Y. Shin, D. J. Hayes, and J.B. Kliebenstein, American Economic Review Vol. 84, No. 1, (March 1994) pp. 255–70
      6. Endowment Effects within Corporate Agency Relationships by Jennifer Arlen, Matthew Spitzer, and Eric Talley, Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 31 (1) (Jan. 2002), pp. 1-37
      7. Duration of Ownership and How Aqcuired - see Strahilevitz and Loewenstein in press, Loewenstein and Issacharoff (1994), and Arkes (1994)
      8. Brand Switching
      9. Vernon Smith - double blind auctions (endowment effects not that big or not there) 2003??? 2004??
      10. Regret
      11. Environmental Law
      12. Compensatory Damages
  4. Heuristics and Cognitive Errors (dominate innate cognitive strategies to efficiently render decisions, or systematic error?)
    1. Gerd Gigerenzer and Peter M. Todd Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart (1999) (link is text summary)
    2. Anchoring (a.k.a. Availability Bias, Reference Point Bias, et al)
      1. Wheel of Fortune - Must reading.Must reading. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Science Vol. 185, (1974), pp. 1124–31
      2. Social Security Numbers - Coherent Arbitrariness: Stable Demand Curves Without Stable Preferences by Dan Ariely, George Loewenstein and Drazen Prelec, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 118, No. 1, (2003), pp. 73-105, and also see short note on Loewenstein in Salon (March 2002)
    3. Over Confidence Bias
    4. Discounting Evidence and Confirmation Bias
    5. Rate Base Neglect
    6. Common Ratio Effects or Psychophysics - some in Quattrone and Tversky Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice American Political Science Review, 82(3), (1988) pp. 719-736; also Tversky and Kahneman The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice Science 211, (1981) pp. 453-458
    7. Overestimating Risk [See Fear-Relevant Selective Associations and Covariation Bias by Andrew J. Tomarken, Susan Mineka, and Michael Cook, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. 98(4) (Nov. 1989), pp. 381-394.  Risk overassessment (a type two error) may be an adaption as types which underestimate risk (type one error) may be less likely to survive.]
    8. Halo Effect
    9. Satisficing as Opposed to Maximizing
    10. Ignoring Sunk Costs
    11. Imperfect Memory Reducing Search Costs
    12. Time Pressure
    13. Probability Errors
    14. When More is Less
      1. Token Economies: Blood Donations and Volunteerism, Token Monetary Rewards and Crowding Out
        see infra Reciprocal Altruism at Crowding Out
      2. Mental Averaging - List - Sports Cards Auctions
  5. Behavioral Finance
    1. Over Confidence
    2. Portfolio Choice (separate buckets)
    3. Libertarian Paternalism by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler (May 2003) (Savings and Default Participation in 401k Plans)
    4. Hyperbolic Discounting
    5. Money Pumps
  6. Other
    1. Tipping
    2. Social Norms and Law
  7. Game Theory and Experimental Economics
    1. Game Theory - the basics
    2. Ultimatum Game and Fairness as a Good
      1. Negative Reciprocity
        On Ultimatum Bargaining Experiments - A Personal Review by Werner Güth Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (1995) Vol. 27, pp. 329-344
        An Experimental Analyses of Ultimatium Bargaining by Werner Güth, Rolf Schmittberger, and Bernd Schwarze Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (1982) Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 367-88
    3. Prisoners Dilemma (Public Goods) Game - Repeated with Positive and Negative Reciprocal Altruism (homo reciprocans)
      1. Axelrod and Hamilton - Also see Twenty Years on: The Evolution of Cooperation Revisited by Robert Hoffmann Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (2000) Vol. 3, No. 2
      2. Carrot or Stick? Group Selection and the Evolution of Reciprocal Preferences by Florian Herold (July 2, 2003)
      3. Experimental Game Theory evidence that people play tit for tat
    4. Regret
  8. Evolutionary Psychology
    1. Overview
      1. Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Center for Evolutionary Psychology UCSB
      2. What is Evolutionary Psychology? by Daniel J. Kruger (2002)
    2. Pure Altruism and Inclusive Fitness
      1. What is altruism? by Elias L. Khalil Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 1, (Feb. 2004), pp. 97-123
      2. Altruism and Economics by Herbert A. Simon American Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 2, (May 1993), pp. 156-161
      3. Altruism, Egoism, and Genetic Fitness: Economics and Sociobiology by Gary S. Becker Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Sept. 1976) pp. 817-826
      4. Inclusive Fitness - The Genetical Evolution of Social Behavior I and II by William D. Hamilton Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, (1964) pp, 1–16, 17-52; and The Evolution of Altruistic Behavior by William D. Hamilton The American Naturalist 97, (1964) pp. 354-56.
      5. Cooperation and competition between twins: Findings from a Prisoner's Dilemma game by Nancy L. Segal and Scott L. Hershberger Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 20, No. 1, (1999) pp. 29-51.
      6. See Gender Differences, infra, (women act more altruistically to kin then men because of better endowed kin recognition mechanisms, an application of Hamilton's rule under uncertainty).
    3. Reciprocal Altruism - homo reciprocanicus
      1. The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism by Robert Trivers Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 46, (March 1971) pp. 35-57 [Seminal work.]
      2. The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod and William Hamilton Science (1981) Vol. 211, pp. 1390-6 (and The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod (1984)) [Seminal work showing a "tit for tat" strategy (i.e. cooperation or reciprocalism) may be dominant over defection in repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game.]
      3. Must readingMust readingReciprocal Altruism and Cheater Detection as a Domain Specific Adaptation - see The Logic of Social Exchange: Has Natural Selection Shaped how Humans Reason? Studies with the Wason Test by Leda Cosmides Cognition Vol. 31, (April 1989) pp. 187-276 or Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby in The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (1992) Chap. 2, pp. 163-228
      4. Cheaters Are Looked At Longer and Remembered Better Than Cooperators in Social Exchange Situations by Dan Chiappe, Adam Brown, Brian Dow, Jennifer Koontz, Marisela Rodriguez, and Kelly McCulloch Evolutionary Psychology Vol. 2, (Aug. 2004) pp. 108-120 (Also shows that face recogition memory of cheaters increases with the degree of cheating.)
      5. Reciprocal Altruism in other Primates, Vampire Bats, etc.
        1. The Chimpanzee’s Sense of Social Regularity and its Relation to the Human Sense of Justice by Frans De Waal American Behavioral Scientist Vol. 34, No. 3, (1991) pp. 335-349
        2. Vervet Monkeys - grooming, see Seyfarth and Cheney (1984)
        3. Vampire Bats - sharing of blood, see Wilkinson (1984)
      6. Crowding Out - How seemingly altruistic behavior such as charity, volunteerism, blood donations, etc., may truly be a form of exchange or reciprocal altruism with an innate cognitive expectation of future reciprocal benefits in return, and how added monetary payments changing such to market exchange, i.e. selling instead of myopic giving, can displace reciprocal benefits.
        1. Review: Abridged readingMotivation Crowding Theory: A Survey of Empirical Evidence, by Bruno S. Frey and Reto Jegen, Journal of Economic Surveys, Vol. 15 (5), (2001) pp. 589-611
        2. Blood Donations, Rewards and Crowding Out or Replacement Heuristic, also Token Economies
          Richard M. Titmuss The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy (1970 UK, 1971 US), and William Edward Upton III Altruism, Attribution and Intrinsic Motivation in the Recruitment of Blood Donors (1973) doctorial dissertation (Cornell) also in Selected Readings in Donor Motivation and Recruitment, Vol. II, ed. American Red Cross, [Seminal work spurring controvery.  Titmuss argues against the commercialization of the blood market in favor of voluntary donor systems.  He argues that token payments for blood donations undetermine the social value to donor and may result in lower donations which is counter-intuitive to most economic theory as added monetary payments, a higher price or benefit, should result in higher donations or supply.  (Abet Titmuss' main argument in his dissection of the supply and growing demand for blood is more centered around crowding out pure altruism and that commercialization leads to more indigent skid row types donating resulting in hazards risking the blood supply and waste.)  He finds that the blood supply net of waste is more expensive under a commercial or market system than under a purely voluntary system. Upton provides better empirical support finding reduced donations among regular donors when offered an additional $10 in compensation.  Modern explanation is that token payment voids or displaces cognitive benefit of higher valued expectation of reciprocal altruism (abet some prior explanations were that the token payment was an insult).]
        3. Titmuss criticized by Kenneth Arrow in Gifts and Exchanges. In Altruism, Morality, and Economic Theory, (1975) ed. E. Phelps. and in Gifts and Exchanges, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol, 1 No. 4 (Summer, 1972) pp. 343-62; and by Robert Solow, Blood and Thunder, Yale Law Journal Vol. 80, No. 2, (1971) pp. 170-83
        4. Abridged reading Pay enough or don’t pay at all by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, Quarterly Journal of Economics, (Aug. 2000) pp. 791-810, finding that volunteers collecting for charity raised significantl fewer funds when additionally paid 1% or 10% rather than zero.
        5. Abridged reading A Fine Is a Price by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini, Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, Part 1, (Jan. 2000) pp. 1–18, finding that the frequency of parents being late when picking up kids from daycare centers rises after fines are imposed for late pick-ups as opposed to no fine.
        6. Abridged reading Does Pay Motivate Volunteers? by Bruno S. Frey and Lorenz Goette (1999) Working Paper No. 7, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, Universität Zürich, finding that introducing added financial rewards to volunteers reduces the amount of volunteerism.
        7. How intrinsic motivation is crowded in and out by Bruno S. Frey, Rationality and Society 6, (1994) pp. 334-352
        8. Abridged reading The cost of price incentives: an empirical analysis of motivation crowding-out by Bruno S. Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee, American Economic Review Vol. 87, (1997) pp. 746-755, finding fewer people wiling to accept "not in my backyard" type public good projects, e.g. nuclear waste repository, when offered monetary compensation as opposed to no compensation.
        9. Abridged readingCharitable Giving as a Gift Exchange Evidence from a Field Experiment by Armin Falk, ISSN Working Paper No. 168, (Oct. 2003), finding higher response rates to solicitation letters for charity when such also contain token gifts.
        10. Reciprocity as a contract Enforcement Device: Experimental Evidence by Ernst Fehr, Simon Gächter, and Georg Kirchsteiger, Econometrica, Vol. 65, (1997) pp. 833-860
        11. Reciprocity and economics: The economic implications of Homo Reciprocans, by Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter, European Economic Review, Vol. 42, (1998) pp. 845-859
        12. Measuring Beliefs in an Experimental Lost Wallet Game by Martin Dufwenberg and Uri Gneezy, Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 30, (2000) pp. 163-182
        13. An alternative explanation for crowding out where agents signal altruistic type by giving instead of selling not to damage reputation and to gain networking benefits with other agents.  See Continuous Preferences can Cause Discontinuous Choices: An Application to the Impact of Incentives on Altruism by Paul Seabright, (2004) CEPR Discussion Paper No. 4322
      7. The Money Solution, see Shelling Out - The Origins of Money by Nick Szabo (2002).
        Exchange was mainly by reciprocal altruism over 99% of the epoch of human evolution as opposed to market exchange.  However, reciprocal altruism is not as efficient to maximize gains from trade or wealth creation (via trade in services and goods, mainly food sharing), as compared to latter developing certain exchange or immediate barter because of the discounted possibility of nonreciprocal behavior or cheating with few contract enforcement mechanisms existing in primitive society outside reputation effects.  The invention of money (circa 75,000-40,000 years ago) solves this problem by turning intertemporal exchange, secured only by trust, into immediate exchange, and money is perhaps one of the most significant advancements in human society contributing to human welfare and fitness possibly inasmuch as the first usage of stone tools (3-2 million years ago), control of fire (1.4 million - 400,000 years ago), development of agriculture (circa 12,000 years ago), or domestication of wild animals (9,000 years ago, excluding dogs circa 135,000 years ago).  The first money was likely art items traded, e.g. beads, trinkets, necklaces, small carved fertility figures, etc., dating back to the "cultural explosion" at least 40,000 years ago along with cave drawings, sophisticated burials, clothing, et al.  The question is why hominoids evolved to have an aesthetic appreciation for art, i.e. why is pleasure derived from such?  Evolutionary Psychology has many convincing arguments for the evolution of preferences over such things as facial and bodily features, sexual attractiveness, why sugar tastes good and rotting food smells bad, even postpartum depression or aesthetic preference for landscapes similar to those found in the African savanna recalling humans evolutionary past, and over the shape of trees where rounder trees with low laying branches tend to be found more beautiful over taller trees - why? - since the former could be better used to gather food or escape predators.  For an aesthetic appreciation for art, or pleasure from such, to evolve there must be reason contributing to fitness, or passing on genes, inasmuch as enjoyment from modern use of fires for aesthetic purposes as opposed to heat (those predecessors who did not like fire were more likely to freeze to death and not pass on genes).  At first glance producing art seems to be a useless activity not contributing to fitness, and possibly retracting from such since labor could be better utilized say to gather food or make tools rather than be uselessly wasted carving trinkets and beads.  However, if trinkets and beads were used for money, such allows a greater creation of wealth via exchange greatly contributing to fitness, thus explaining the evolution of an aesthetic appreciation for art in humans, with art items traded and contributing to the creation of wealth augmenting fitness thus being the first form of money.
        (Also see recent developments, Blombos Cave in Africa, dating back 75,000 years ago instead of 40,000 as prior date of cultural revolution showing usage of art, with ostrich beads. Link 1 and Link 2, i.e. money, a.k.a. art, for home sapiens may have developed much earlier than prior claimed history.)
    4. Gender Differences (all empirically supported)
      1. Endowment Effects - larger in men than women (likely result of adaption where men engaged in more reciprocal altruism via cooperation and local public good contributions by specialization in risky hunting, thus more discounting of possible cheating, and women tending to gathering with more barter exchange)
      2. Prisoners Dilemma - women more likly to play noncooperative strategies than men
      3. Ultimatum Game - women respondents less likely to reject offer than men, and more likely to accept if proposer is a woman, and woment tend to make larger offers then men
      4. Dictator Games - larger offers by women than men
      5. Risk Aversion - larger in women than men (likely result of men engaging in more risky hunting during evolutionary past, yet in modern times men take more risks then women such as gambling, risky stock market investments, and men are more frequently killed as pedestrians crossing the street since less likely to look for oncomming cars than women)
      6. Prostitution, Poligamy, and Marriage/Mate Markets
      7. Pure Altruism - women act more altruistically to genetic offspring than men since kin recognition mechanisms are more certain among women (giving birth) than men (greater chance of outside pair copulations), i.e. women are more certain of genetic relatedness of offspring than are men, i.e. the latter gender is may be more likely to err in investing resources in parenting of nonbiological children fathered by other males.  E.g. grandmother's give bigger gifts to grand children from a daughter than grandfathers give to grandchildren of a son, see Todd DeKay (1995), or like Cinderella disfavor stepchildren over biological children, and at extreme of negative pure altruism, the murder of preschool children is 100 times more likely for stepparents than natural parents (and similar infanticide the general rule for other primates such as gorillas where the new dominant, or silverback, alpha male kills all infants of the prior dominant male in the social group), abet one off-setting kin recognition adaption in humans is that infants are far more likely to physically resemble the biological father over the natural mother.  Similarly, maternal aunts and uncles (siblings of mother) are more likely to contribute to welfare of nieces and nephews than paternal aunts and uncles (siblings of father), and aunts (maternal or paternal) invest more than uncles in nieces and nephews, see Gaulin, McBurney, and Brakeman-Wartell (1997).
    5. The Two Faces of Adam Smith by Vernon L. Smith, Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 65, No. 1, (July 1998) pp. 1-19
  9. Neuroeconomics (biological models of economic decision making)
    1. Neuroeconomics: How Neuroscience Can Inform Economics by Colin Camerer and George Loewenstein (Feb. 3, 2003)
    2. Anticipation of Increasing Monetary Reward Selectively Recruits Nucleus Accumbens by Brian Knutson, Charles M. Adams, Grace W. Fong, and Daniel Hommer, Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 21, (2001) pp. 1-6
    3. Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion by N. I. Eisenberger, M. D. Lieberman, and K. D. Williams, Science, Vol. 302, (Oct. 2003) pp. 290-292
    4. The Neural Basis of Economic Decision Making in the Ultimatum Game by A. G. Sanfey, J. K. Rilling, J. A. Aronson, L. E. Nystrom, and J. D. Cohen, Science, Vol. 300, (June 2003) pp. 1755-1757
The above outline is an incomplete working draft.  Would the above outline and topics be a suitable arrangement for an undergraduate textbook about Behavioral Economics?
Please email your comments or suggestions to Joe Pomykala.

Key Terms:

    Allias Paradox (e.g., see page 14 of this link courtesy of Richard Weber)
    Altruism (see Pure and Reciprocal Altruism)
    Anchoring
    Availability Bias
    Bounded Rationality
    Chromosomes [Cell part containing DNA or genes.  Humans have 23 base pairs or sets of chromosomes, inheriting one chromosome of each pair from each biological parent, with the 23rd pair or sex chromosomes being XX (female) or XY (male). (Note 24 base pairs in other primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, humans likely lost a pair in the common ancestral past circa 5 million years ago whereas two "ape" chromosomes, 12 and 13, fused to formed human chromosome 2, and also note 95-98% of human and chimp DNA is identical).  Offspring inherit individual chromosomes from both parents resulting in 223 or approximately 8 million different possible offspring combinations.  Children contain 50% similar genetic material to any single parent, or on average 25% to any grandparent, or siblings are on average 50% similar.]
    Crowding Out [NOT with respect to public provision of private goods reducing private contributions, NOR the macroeconomic sense where the opportunity cost of public sector goods is a reduction of private sector goods, but rather where payments in market exchange may void benefit or expectation of reciprocal altruism.  E.g. supply of volunteer work or blood donations may fall if (token) remuneral payment is added since such payment may void cognitive debt gained or expectation of reciprocal altruistic behavior.]
    Culture
    Domain Specific Cognitive Adaptation
    Ellsberg's Paradox (variation of Allias Paradox, e.g., see page 15 of this link courtesy of Richard Weber)
    Endowment Effects
    Evolutionary Psychology
    Fitness (also see Inclusive Fitness)
    Framing Effects
    Genotype (also see Phenotype) [The genetic profile of an individual.]
    Halo Effect
    Hamilton's Rule (a.k.a. theory of kin selection) [Pure altruism is an evolutionary adaption in many species and will occur if contributing to overall inclusive fitness, or if C < r*B where C = the cost to the actor (in terms of personal fitness), B = benefit to the recipient (in terms of cumulative fitness), r = the degree of genetic relatedness of the actor to recipient/beneficiary (e.g. .50 for parents and children, siblings, .25 for grandparents and grandchildren, etc.).  Thus, the degree of acts of altruism depend on how closely related persons are, and kin receive more than non-kin. ]
    Heredity
    Heuristics
    Hominoids [Extinct and living species of bipedal primate mammals with two families, Gibbons (lesser apes) and Hominids (great apes) including bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and humans.  Homo genus includes Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalis, and Homo Sapiens.]
    Inclusive Fitness [Reproductive success in terms of survival of genotype in future generations.  Includes personal fitness where direct offspring live to a reproductive age, and shared fitness where relatives sharing similar genetic material also pass on genes.  Direct offspring are 50% genetically similar (in terms of chromosomes) to either biological parent, siblings are on average 50% similar (or 100% if monozygotic or identical twins), 25% between grandparents and grandchildren or between uncles and aunts and their nieces and nephews, and 12.5% for first cousins.  Key term in evolutionary theory (W. Hamilton, 1964) explaining existence of altruistic behavior at sacrifice of personal fitness since close genetic relatives, in addition to direct offspring, may also pass on a degree of one's genes, with such also depending on kin recognition.]
    Memes [Replicating transmission of learned culture in phenotypes, the cultural or environmental analog to genes.]
    Mitochondrial DNA
    Mitosis versus Meiosis [Cell division/replication, mutations in gene replication in former cause tumors and cancers only effecting individuals not passing to offspring; but for latter such mutations or errors in DNA replication during sexual reproduction alter endowed material in gametes (sperm and ovae) leading to genetic variation and the evolution of new traits and species, if not fatal.]
    Muller - Lyer Perceptual Illusion
    Nash Equilibrium
    Over Confidence Bias
    [Theory of] Parental Investment [Relative resource investment in offspring by parental gender type (only for species with sexual reproduction) results in more discrimination in mate selection for high investment gender and more promiscuous behavior by low investment gender types.  See Trivers (1972).]
    Phenotype (also see Genotype) [The outward manifestation or characteristics of an organism shaped by both its genotype and environmental factors.]
    Pleistocene Era
    Ponzo Perceptual Illusion
    Preferences
    Prisoners Dilemma
    Pure Altruism (also see Reciprocal Altruism)
    Rate Base Neglect
    Reciprocal Altruism (also see Pure Altruism)
    Reference Point Bias
    Risk Aversion
    Satisficing Strategy
    Social Norm
    Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) [individual behavior chiefly determined by environment and exposed culture (mimes) with general purpose objectives (e.g. maximize utility) as opposed to nature and a number of specialized domain specific adaptions (e.g. recognize cheaters on social contracts over reciprocal altruism) which have evolved according to biology and genetics (abet evolutionary psychologists at other end do not discount culture).   Also see this link, et al.]
    Status Quo Bias
    Tit for Tat Strategy
    Transitivity
    Ultimatum Game
    Wason Test (See left link and Standard Social Contract and a Switched Social Contract noting empirical evidence supports a context dependent innate ability to detect cheaters in exchange, likely useful to get benefits from trade or wealth creation via exchange contributing to fitness, see Leda Cosmides and Evolutionary Psychology.  Also see this link.)

Links
Organizations and Websites Journals and Working Papers

Web Sites of those contributing to Behavioral Economics


Unplaced Stuff

 
Is what you perceive the same as what is there?
Is subjective expected utility more than asymmetric information and individual preferences given innate cognitive errors?
 
  Müeller-Lyer Ponzo  
Perception Illusions Perception Illusions Perception Illusions Perception Illusions
Count the black dots. Which horizontal line seems bigger? Which horizontal line seems bigger? Do the horizontal lines seem straight?




They are constant and do not change. They are both the same length. They are both the same length. They are all perfectly horizontal.

 
Cognitive illusions where what is there deviates from what we perceive is there, impacts the way we think and reason, and thus decision making.  For example, the unemployment rate rising from 5% to 10% (doubling) is viewed as larger in magnitude than the employment rate falling from 95% to 90% (minus 5.26%) which is identical.  The mind views objects relative to others (and previous imprinted patterns in the brain).  A candle seems to emit more light in the dark than a well lit room.  A trip to a dealership across town to save $100 on the purchase of a $20,000 new car seems not worth the time while many would make the same trip to buy a half-priced TV marked down to $100 from $200 saving the same.  The mind treats using cash to avoid a credit card surcharge to save a dollar differently than using cash to acquire a cash discount to gain a dollar, and favors the former as losses are avoided and gains discounted.  Even with a Hicksian compensating variation to neutralize income effects, the marginal rate of substitution differs if moving to acquire or dispose of an item, and thus indifference curves are one directional from the current endowment point or kinked and nonreversible, such casting doubt on 130 years of standard economic theory.  Some people would not pay someone $20 to wash their car preferring to sacrifice an hour’s time doing it themselves, but at the same time would not consider washing someone else's car for $20 at the cost of an hour of their time - now what is valued more, an hour’s time or $20?  The answer depends on if gaining an hour's time verus losing $20, or if gaining $20 versus losing an hour's time.  People have a preference not to lose what they are endowed or discount any gains.  Equivalent tradeoffs between gains and losses are treated differently.  Even a wolf will expend more effort to defend and keep an area than to acquire more of the same.  People are averse to losses or discount equivalent gains, possibly a remnant of age old domain specific reasoning to naturally discount reciprocal altruism for possibility of cheating despite the near certainty of modern market exchange.



Famous Quote :
“Would I lay down my life to save my brother? 
No, but I would to save two brothers or eight cousins.”
- J.B.S. Haldane (1955)
Why?  Evolution of preferences would favor a degree of pure altruism, e.g. enjoyment from feeding your kids; or more specifically, an innate like or enjoyment from having your genes survive and offspring live to a reproductive age or fitness.  However we also share genes with close and distant relatives (in fact, based on mitochondrial DNA, all living humans share a common maternal ancestor from about 150,000-200,000 years ago - "Mitochondrial Eve" living in South West Africa, and other studies based on Y-chromosomes indicate a common paternal ancestor around 50,000 years ago, yet note that the population of [homo sapien] humans may have been as low as 10,000 circa 70,000 years ago).  Pure altruistic behavior towards others reflects inclusive fitness whereas happiness derived from giving declines with the similarity of genetic material between the giver and beneficiary, e.g. people have an innate preference to give larger Christmas gifts to their kids and siblings, and smaller ones to nieces, nephews, and cousins, and maybe nothing to children and neighbors next door nor to people currently starving to death other places on the planet [About 23 children on the planet starve to death every minute. - How much did you spend last Christmas for gifts to relatives while others starved?].

In economic terms, the welfare of others may be considered a local public good individually weighted by similarity of genetic material, or Ui = Ui(xi, bijUj(xj, ...), bikUk(xk, ...), ... , binUk(xn, ...) ) with xi being individual i's the direct consumption and bij , bik , and bin being metrics or weights for similarity of genetic material between individual i and others j, k, ..., n.  Note that social organization (a.k.a. memes as opposed to genes) such as the family unit mitigates the freerider problem increasing the provision level for the local public good (children's welfare).  Social Norms and laws such as compacts of marriage and child support laws also mitigate.

Altruistic preferences are also subject to natural genetic variations, mutations as DNA replicates, and environmental factors.  Mother Teresa types exist who care much more about others than themselves, such indicated by b being large and positive.  In contrast, sociopaths are defined as persons with a lack of empathy or caring towards others, or remorse when they do harm to others, or even possible narcissistic enjoyment derived from the pain of others, e.g. serial killers such as Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy.  A sociopath's bs would be small, zero, or negative.  Homo economicus commonly modeled as having preferences Ui(xi) solely in self-interest is a sociopath by definition.  Clearly such preferences homo sociopathus are rare and inconsistent with observed behavior (or revealed preferences) for most members of society.  Homo altruans is a more descriptive genus.  Homo altruans reciprocans is yet a better representation as altruism may be both pure or reciprocal, the latter being a form of exchange creating wealth and contributing towards fitness inasmuch as traditional market exchange.  Humans (and other animals) have innate skills geared towards reciprocal exchange (tit for tat and detecting cheaters) which have evolved over millions of years in contrast to more certain market exchange being around perhaps less than the last 50,000 years at best.



Las Chimeneas deer (c. 12,000 BC)
What were your great ... grandparents thinking about 700 generations ago?  Is it much different than today?

Las Chimeneas deer (c. 12,000 BC)
  What were your great ... grandparents thinking about 700 generations ago?
  Is it much different than today?  

  homo erectus


What is wrong with this picture?

1.) First character is wrong.  Hominids did not evolve from Chimpanzees.  Homo genus begins about 2.3 mill. years ago.  (Yet on a genealogical basis, humans share about 98.5% of the same DNA with our closest cousins, Chimpanzees.)  Chimps are only one branch of primates.  Plus it is missing all the dead branches, e.g. hominoids that became extinct like Neanderthals, et al.
2.) Spacing:  Characters are better placed miles apart on the left and inches on right according to time span. ... see below ....

Quick Time Line of History (click)


 
 
Chromosomes - human male - XY     DNA - click for Human Genome Project     Chromosomes - human female - YY

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This document last modified on Thursday, September 09, 2004 22:10:31
This document last modified on Thu, 09 Sep 2004 18:39:54 GMT