|
on Neuroeconomics |
|
Issue of 2014‒05‒17
four papers chosen by |
| By: | L. Corazzini; A. Filippin; P. Vanin |
| Abstract: | We report results from an incentivized laboratory experiment to provide controlled evidence on the causal effects of alcohol consumption on risk preferences, time perception and altruism. Our design allows disentangling the pharmacological effects of alcohol intoxication from those mediated by expectations, as we compare behaviors of three groups of subjects: those participating to an experiment with no reference to alcohol, those exposed to the possibility of consuming alcohol but assigned to a placebo and those having effectively consumed alcohol. Once randomly assigned to one treatment, subjects were administered a series of consecutive economic tasks, being the sequence kept constant across treatments. After controlling for both the willingness to pay and the potential misperception of probabilities as elicited in the experiment, we do not detect any effect of alcohol in depleting subjects’ risk tolerance. On the contrary, we find that alcohol intoxication increases impatience. Moreover, we find that alcohol makes subjects less generous as we detect a negative relationship between the blood alcohol concentration and the amount of money donated to NGOs. |
| JEL: | D03 I10 C91 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp944&r=neu |
| By: | Norbert Schady; Jere Behrman; Maria Caridad Araujo; Raquel Bernal |
| Abstract: | Abstract Research from the United States shows that gaps in early cognitive and non-cognitive ability appear early in the life cycle. Little is known about this important question for developing countries. This paper provides new evidence of sharp differences in cognitive development by socioeconomic status in early childhood for five Latin American countries. To help with comparability, we use the same measure of receptive language ability for all five countries. We find important differences in development in early childhood across countries, and steep socioeconomic gradients within every country. For the three countries where we can follow children over time, there are few substantive changes in scores once children enter school. Our results are robust to different ways of defining socioeconomic status, to different ways of standardizing outcomes, and to selective non-response on our measure of cognitive development |
| Keywords: | early childhood, socioeconomic gaps, Latin-American |
| JEL: | J13 I38 |
| Date: | 2014–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:010997&r=neu |
| By: | Alexander W. Cappelen (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University); Ulrik H. Nielsen (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University); Bertil Tungodden (Norwegian School of Economics); Jean-Robert Tyran (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University); Erik Wengström (Department of Economics, Copenhagen University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we provide new evidence showing that fair behavior is intuitive to most people. We find a strong association between a short response time and fair behavior in the dictator game. This association is robust to controls that take account of the fact that response time might be affected by the decision-maker's cognitive ability and swiftness. The experiment was conducted with a large and heterogeneous sample recruited from the general population in Denmark. We find a striking similarity in the association between response time and fair behavior across groups in the society, which suggests that the predisposition to act fairly is a general human trait. |
| Keywords: | Response Time, Dictator Game, Experiment, Fairness |
| JEL: | C90 D03 D60 |
| Date: | 2014–04–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1410&r=neu |
| By: | LEE SunYoun; OHTAKE Fumio |
| Abstract: | By analyzing the Japanese and U.S. survey data, this study investigates whether non-cognitive skills, as measured by Big 5 personality traits and behavioral characteristics indicated by risk aversion rate, time discount rate, and (over) confidence, explain the variation in educational and labor market outcomes. The obtained results indicate that non-cognitive skills, as well as behavioral characteristics, account for a significant portion in explaining the variation in schooling, wages, and career promotion. Some interesting country differences, particularly in educational attainment, are found in agreeableness and consciousness, which may suggest the existence of country-specific, non-cognitive determinants of educational success. With respect to labor market outcomes, in both Japan and the United States, conscientiousness seems to contribute to male earnings, whereas extraversion and emotional stability are more important predictors of female earnings. For career promotion, extraversion is an important determinant for the probability of being promoted to a management position among males in both countries. The overall findings suggest that personality traits are associated with educational and career success to different degrees between countries and genders. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14023&r=neu |