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on Neuroeconomics |
| By: | Meng ZHAO; Ting YIN |
| Abstract: | Beyond the natural cognitive decline that accompanies aging, a growing body of research suggests that social capital can influence this process, particularly after retirement. This study investigates the interplay among social capital, retirement, and cognitive function. Using longitudinal Japanese data from 2007, 2009 and 2011, we assess three cognitive domains - orientation to time and place, short-term memory, and calculation ability - and examine how they can be affected by working status and social capital, proxied by participation in social activities and the size of one’s friendship network. The major findings of this study are: (1) the cognitive effects of retirement appear to be complex and dynamic; and (2) social capital and employment interact with each other, with regular participation in social activities playing a protective role in cognitive aging. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:25094 |
| By: | Tommaso Bondi; Daniel Csaba; Evan Friedman; Salvatore Nunnari |
| Abstract: | Several behavioral models assume that choice over multi-attribute goods is systematically affected by the ranges of attribute values. Two recurring principles in this literature are contrast, whereby attributes with larger ranges attract attention and are therefore overweighted, and normalization, whereby attributes with larger ranges are underweighted as fixed differences appear smaller against a larger range. These principles lead to divergent predictions, and yet, both contrast-based and normalization-based models have found strong empirical support, albeit in different contexts and with different experimental designs. The question remains: when does one effect emerge over the other? We experimentally test a unifying explanation: normalization dominates in simple choices, while contrast dominates in complex choices. We conduct an experiment with real-effort tasks in which we manipulate attribute ranges in both simple and complex choices. We find that, indeed, contrast dominates as the number of attributes increases. We also find that contrast emerges with cognitive load induced by time pressure. |
| Keywords: | multi-attribute choice, range effects, focusing, relative thinking, salience, bottom-up attention, context dependence, complexity, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D91 D12 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12175 |
| By: | Deepak Saraswat; Shwetlena Sabarwal; Lindsey Lacey; Natasha Jha; Nishith Prakash; Rachel Cohen |
| Abstract: | Nearly 200 million children under five in low- and middle-income countries face developmental deficits, even as access to early childhood services expands. We present evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial (N=3, 131 children in 201 schools) in Nepal’s government system testing three models of combining classroom quality with parental engagement. All teachers completed a 15-day training on pedagogy, national standards, and caregiver engagement, after which schools were randomly assigned to models varying whether caregiver sessions were led by teachers alone, by teachers supported with in-class helpers, or by external facilitators. The intervention increased children’s developmental outcomes by 0.10–0.20 standard deviations and improved caregiver engagement by similar magnitudes. Effects were most consistent when teachers received support that sustained classroom quality while engaging families, underscoring the critical role of workload management. Impacts were concentrated among disadvantaged households—those with lower baseline engagement, higher stress, and less education—highlighting the potential to reduce early childhood inequalities. Mechanism analysis shows the program shifted home and school inputs from substitutes to complements, creating mutually reinforcing pathways for child development. These findings demonstrate that modest, system-embedded reforms can generate scalable improvements in early childhood human capital formation. |
| Keywords: | early childhood development, cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), Nepal |
| JEL: | J13 J24 I21 I24 O15 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12160 |