Collaborative Research: Understanding the Connections Between Economic Behaviors

合作研究：了解经济行为之间的联系

• 批准号: 1156090
• 负责人: Mark Dean
• 金额: $ 18.23万
• 依托单位: Brown University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-04-01 至 2015-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1156090&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Understanding; Connections; Between

This award funds research in behavioral economics that will analyze the possible relationships between economic behaviors using new data and new modeling methods. Over the past thirty years, behavioral and experimental economists have made great strides in identifying behaviors that are hard to explain using the classic model of economic decision making: these include violations of expected utility theory such as the Allais paradox, ambiguity aversion, present bias, loss aversion and the endowment effect. All of these behaviors have been shown to affect important economic decisions, and have been the subject of enormous amounts of attention by researchers. However, far less attention has been paid to the links between these behaviors. This project examines these links both empirically and theoretically. The first part of the project employs a laboratory experiment to measure a long list of well-known behavioral phenomena, including the ones listed above, in a single group of subjects, allowing the researchers to estimate the empirical relationship between them. Using these data they are then able to test the predictions of existing models about these relationships, and can use these results to guide their theoretical model. The second project develops part of that model, through a link between two particular behavioral biases: the Allais paradox in choice over risky prospects (i.e. where the probabilities of different outcomes are known) and the Ellsberg paradox in choice over uncertain prospects (i.e. where the probabilities of different outcomes are not known). Both behaviors can be explained by a unique behavioral axiom -- a generalized preference for hedging. This model will potentially be helpful in understanding behavior in environments that have both risk and uncertainty (such as financial decision making) and to capture more precisely the agent's attitude towards each of them. The third project extends the empirical work from project 1 by repeating the same experiment with a different subject pool, focusing on: (1) a representative sample of the US population; (2) subjects who suffer from anxiety and depression; (3) subjects primed into various emotional states. Because the economic behaviors studied in this project are so ubiquitous, this grant could have a wide impact in many areas of the social sciences. For macroeconomists, who have long understood the impact of these biases on economic performance, understanding the relationship between them is necessary for understanding the distribution of economic outcomes. For policy makers, an understanding of any common cause to these biases could prove to be very helpful for any attempt to rectify them. For neuroeconomists and psychologists, such an understanding could aid the search for the biological bases of economic behavior.

该奖项为行为经济学的研究提供了资金，这些研究将使用新数据和新的建模方法分析经济行为之间的可能关系。在过去的三十年中，行为和实验经济学家在识别行为方面取得了长足的进步，这些行为很难使用经典的经济决策模型来解释：这些包括违反了预期效用理论的行为，例如Allais悖论，歧义厌恶，当前的偏见，损失，厌恶和赋予效果。所有这些行为都被证明会影响重要的经济决策，并成为研究人员大量关注的主题。但是，对这些行为之间的联系的关注得多。该项目在经验和理论上都研究了这些链接。该项目的第一部分采用实验室实验来测量一系列众所周知的行为现象，包括上面列出的一组受试者，使研究人员能够估算它们之间的经验关系。然后，使用这些数据，他们可以测试有关这些关系的现有模型的预测，并可以使用这些结果来指导其理论模型。第二个项目通过两种特定的行为偏见之间的联系发展了该模型的一部分：选择了风险前景的Allais悖论（即知道不同结果的概率）和Ellsberg Paradox在选择不确定的前景中（即未知的不同目的的概率）。这两种行为都可以通过独特的行为公理来解释 - 对冲的普遍偏好。该模型有可能有助于理解具有风险和不确定性（例如财务决策）的环境中的行为，并更准确地捕获代理商对每个人的态度。第三个项目通过用不同的主题库重复相同的实验来扩展项目1的经验工作，重点是：（1）美国人口的代表样本； （2）患有焦虑和抑郁的受试者； （3）受试者进入各种情绪状态。由于该项目中研究的经济行为无处不在，因此该赠款可能在社会科学的许多领域产生广泛的影响。对于长期以来了解这些偏见对经济绩效的影响的宏观经济学家，了解它们之间的关系对于理解经济成果的分布是必要的。对于政策制定者而言，对这些偏见的任何共同原因的理解可能对任何纠正它们的尝试都非常有帮助。对于神经经济学家和心理学家，这种理解可以帮助寻找经济行为的生物学基础。