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Publications (17)
Policy design principles based on insights from psychology and economics could have a major impact on the effectiveness of policy implementation in areas such as under-saving, contract design, the measurement of vulnerability, and political support for redistributive policies both in the global...
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– A New Approach to Development Policy
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to better diagnosis and to better-designed solutions...
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– A Research Review and Agenda
The poor can and do save, but often use formal or informal instruments that have high risk, high cost, and limited functionality. This could lead to undersaving compared to a world without market or behavioural frictions. Undersaving can have important welfare consequences: variable consumption, low...
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In this paper we argue that the recent evidence on individuals’ decision making is of high relevance for the measurement of poverty when switching from a static and certain to a dynamic and uncertain framework. The numerous proposed measures of multi-period poverty and vulnerability have until now...
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– an Experimental Study from Ethiopia
An experimental design using treatments of a voluntary contribution mechanism is used to test household efficiency. Efficiency is decisively rejected in all treatments contrary to the assumption of most household models. Information on initial endowments of spouses improves efficiency only in some...
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We provide an axiomatic treatment of the measurement of economic insecurity, assuming that individual insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. The first component plays the role of a buffer stock to rely on in case of an adverse future event. The...
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– the Kin System as a Mechanism of Income-Hiding Between Spouses in Rural Ghana
I present a model of intra-household allocation to show that when income is not perfectly observed by both spouses, hiding of income can occur even when revelation increases bargaining power. I draw data from Ghana and exploit the variation in the degree of asymmetric information between spouses...
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We analyse rural household livelihood and children’s school enrollment decisions in a post-conflict setting in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region of Bangladesh. The innovation of the paper lies in the fact that we employ information about current subjective perceptions regarding the possibility of...
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This paper examines the measurement of social welfare, poverty and inequality taking into account features that have been found to be important welfare determinants in behavioural economics. Most notably, we incorporate reference-dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity—aspects...
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– Relative Status, Ceremonies and Early Child Development in China
Presenting gifts at funerals, weddings, and other ceremonies held by fellow villagers have been regarded as social norms in Chinese villages for thousands of years. However, it is more burdensome for the poor to take part in these social occasions than for the rich. Because the poor often lack the...
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– An Agent-Based Simulation
Behavioural economics highlights the role of social preferences in economic decisions. Further, populations are heterogeneous; suggesting that group composition may impact the ability to sustain voluntary public goods contributions. This parallels research in public economics where fractionalization...
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In the presence of inequality a status-driven utility function reconciles the conflict between income-based and nutrition-based measures of poverty. Moreover, it can explain why the poor tend to save less, an established empirical fact in the developing countries. The result is independent of the...
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India addressed the requirement for pro-poor service delivery in rural regions by introducing decentralization and affirmative action policies. In order to measure the social preferences of local decision makers, we conducted field experiments which simulated the selection of needy beneficiaries for...
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A number of studies document an in-group bias in social dilemma situations. While group structure and dynamics are important in shaping in-group favouritism, less attention has been paid to individual characteristics affecting favouritism. Using data from dictator games conducted among 523...
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– Contrasting Rational Choice and Behavioural Perspectives
Based on the standard axiom of individual utility maximization, rational choice has postulated that higher income inequality translates into greater redistribution by shaping the median voter’s preferences. While numerous papers have tested this proposition, the literature has remained divided over...
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Information failures are a major barrier to formal financial saving in low income countries. Households in rural communities often lack the information necessary to set up formal deposit accounts or are uncertain about the returns to saving formally. In this paper, we explore the extent to which...
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