Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Economics

Overview

Economics traditionally conceptualizes the world according to the assumption that the entire population is comprised of equally informed, educated, and equity maximizing individuals (Homo Economicus). It is argued that behavioral and psychological insights could improve the understanding of economic decisions by: 1. Identifying way in which behavior differs from the standard Homo Economicus model, and 2. showing how this behavior manifests itself in economic terms (Mullainathan and Thaler 2)

Two Components of Behavioral Economics

1. Identifying the ways in which behavior differs from the standard model
2. Showing how this behavior matters in economic context

Behavioral Economics Theories

Prospect Theory

How people make choices under uncertainty. One needs to understand when indviduals faced with separate gambles treat them as separate gains and losses and when they treat them as one, pooling them to produce one gain or loss.

1. It is defined over change to wealth rather than levels of wealth to incorporate the concept of adaptation
2. The loss function is steeper than the gain function to incorporate the notion of "loss aversion"; the notion that people are more sensitive to descreases in their well being than to increases.
3. Both the gain and loss function display diminishing sensitvity (the gain function is concave, the loss function is convex) to reflect experimental findings.

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Home Page | History of Behavioral Economics | Basic Concepts | Stock Markets | Gambling and Stocks | Gambler's fallacy and Law of Small Numbers |Hunting for Homo Sovieticus: Situational versus Attitudinal Factors | Criticism of Behavioral Economics | Behavioral Economics: Sources

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