Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

This Special Issue brings together papers from UNU-WIDER Conference on Poverty and Behavioural Economics that were accepted after the peer review process of the journal. The eight papers in this Special Issue all share the objective of exploring the consequences for the analysis of poverty and development of broadening the perspective on economic behavior beyond the standard textbook model of rational choice.

In the limited space available, the coverage of topics cannot of course be as broad as it was at the conference itself, but some of the central issues are indeed broached in the papers in this Special Issue. The papers cover inter alia the topics of behavioral design, savings, social networks, contracts, cooperation, and inequality and poverty.

The papers in this Special Issue illustrate the contribution that behavioral economics can make to the study of poverty and development. We hope that the Special Issue as a whole highlights this as a vibrant topic of investigation and policy focus, and that it will serve to encourage further work in this important area of research.

Table of contents
  1. Introduction: poverty, development, and behavioral economics
    Markus Jäntti, Ravi Kanbur, Jukka Pirttilä
  2. Behavioral Design: A New Approach to Development Policy
    Saugato Datta, Sendhil Mullainathan
    More Working Paper | Behavioral Design
    More Blog | Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Development Policy
  3. Savings by and for the Poor: A Research Review and Agenda
    Dean S. Karlan, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, Jonathan Zinman
    More Working Paper | Savings By and For the Poor
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
    More Blog | Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Development Policy
  4. Social Capital, Network Effects, and Savings in Rural Vietnam
    Carol Newman, Finn Tarp, Katleen van den Broeck
    More Working Paper | Social Capital, Network Effects and Savings in Rural Vietnam
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
    More Blog | Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Development Policy
  5. Do Non-Enforceable Contracts Matter?: Evidence from an International Lab Experiment
    Alexander W. Cappelen, Rune Jansen Hagen, Erik Ø. Sørensen, Bertil Tungodden
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
  6. Aid Distribution and Cooperation in Unequal Communities
    Ben D’Exelle, Marrit van den Berg
    More Working Paper | Aid Distribution and Co-operation in Unequal Communities
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
    More Blog | Lessons from Behavioural Economics for Development Policy
  7. Income Inequality, Redistribution, and Poverty: Contrasting Rational Choice and Behavioral Perspectives
    Malte Lübker
    More Working Paper | Income Inequality, Redistribution and Poverty
  8. Poverty, Vulnerability, and Reference-Dependent Utility
    Isabel Günther, Johannes Maier
    More Working Paper | Poverty, Vulnerability, and Reference Dependent Utility
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
  9. Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory
    Markus Jäntti, Ravi Kanbur, Milla Nyyssölä, Jukka Pirttilä
    More Working Paper | Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory
    More Blog | Open Access and UNU-WIDER
Show all