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Publications (30)
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Working Paper
pdf
– 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...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A New Approach to Development Policy
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Working Paper
pdf
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...
Working Paper
pdf
– 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...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from an International Lab Experiment
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Working Paper
pdf
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...
Working Paper
pdf
– 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...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Contrasting Rational Choice and Behavioral Perspectives
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Working Paper
pdf
– 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...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Blog
23 April 2014 Jukka Pirttilä In conventional economic theory, agents are assumed to be able to make rational choices, unaffected by emotions and not constrained by decision-making errors. This theory works well in some situations, but in the last two decades, it has become increasingly clear that...
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...
Working Paper
pdf
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...
Working Paper
pdf
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...
Blog
21 February 2014 Tony Addison Development researchers live in a world where research on development, not just in economics but also political science, environmental science, anthropology (to name just a few areas of inquiry) is abundant. It is often very easy to access, with information technology...
Displaying 16 of 30 results