Collaborative Research: Understanding the Connections Between Economics Behaviors

该奖项资助行为经济学研究，该研究将使用新数据和新建模方法分析经济行为之间的可能关系。在过去的30年里，行为经济学家和实验经济学家在识别难以用经典经济决策模型解释的行为方面取得了长足的进步：这些行为包括违反预期效用理论的行为，如阿莱悖论、模糊厌恶、现在偏见、损失厌恶和禀赋效应。所有这些行为都被证明会影响重要的经济决策，并受到研究人员的极大关注。然而，很少有人关注这些行为之间的联系。本项目从经验和理论两方面研究这些联系。该项目的第一部分采用实验室实验来测量一长串众所周知的行为现象，包括上面列出的那些，在一组受试者中，使研究人员能够估计它们之间的经验关系。使用这些数据，他们就能够测试现有模型对这些关系的预测，并可以使用这些结果来指导他们的理论模型。第二个项目通过两种特定行为偏差之间的联系来发展该模型的一部分：选择风险前景的阿莱悖论（即不同结果的概率已知）和选择不确定前景的埃尔斯伯格悖论（即不同结果的概率未知）。这两种行为都可以用一个独特的行为公理来解释--对对冲的普遍偏好。该模型将有助于理解在既有风险又有不确定性的环境中的行为（如财务决策），并更准确地捕捉代理人对每个人的态度。第三个项目扩展了项目1的实证工作，用不同的受试者重复相同的实验，重点是：（1）美国人口的代表性样本;（2）患有焦虑和抑郁的受试者;（3）进入各种情绪状态的受试者。由于该项目研究的经济行为是如此普遍，这笔赠款可能会在社会科学的许多领域产生广泛的影响。对于宏观经济学家来说，他们早就了解这些偏见对经济表现的影响，理解它们之间的关系对于理解经济结果的分布是必要的。对政策制定者来说，了解这些偏见的任何共同原因，都可能对纠正这些偏见的任何努力非常有帮助。对于神经经济学家和心理学家来说，这样的理解有助于寻找经济行为的生物学基础。

This award funds research in behavioral economics that will analyze the possible relationships between economic behaviors using new data and new modeling methods. Over the past thirty years, behavioral and experimental economists have made great strides in identifying behaviors that are hard to explain using the classic model of economic decision making: these include violations of expected utility theory such as the Allais paradox, ambiguity aversion, present bias, loss aversion and the endowment effect. All of these behaviors have been shown to affect important economic decisions, and have been the subject of enormous amounts of attention by researchers. However, far less attention has been paid to the links between these behaviors. This project examines these links both empirically and theoretically. The first part of the project employs a laboratory experiment to measure a long list of well-known behavioral phenomena, including the ones listed above, in a single group of subjects, allowing the researchers to estimate the empirical relationship between them. Using these data they are then able to test the predictions of existing models about these relationships, and can use these results to guide their theoretical model. The second project develops part of that model, through a link between two particular behavioral biases: the Allais paradox in choice over risky prospects (i.e. where the probabilities of different outcomes are known) and the Ellsberg paradox in choice over uncertain prospects (i.e. where the probabilities of different outcomes are not known). Both behaviors can be explained by a unique behavioral axiom -- a generalized preference for hedging. This model will potentially be helpful in understanding behavior in environments that have both risk and uncertainty (such as financial decision making) and to capture more precisely the agent's attitude towards each of them. The third project extends the empirical work from project 1 by repeating the same experiment with a different subject pool, focusing on: (1) a representative sample of the US population; (2) subjects who suffer from anxiety and depression; (3) subjects primed into various emotional states. Because the economic behaviors studied in this project are so ubiquitous, this grant could have a wide impact in many areas of the social sciences. For macroeconomists, who have long understood the impact of these biases on economic performance, understanding the relationship between them is necessary for understanding the distribution of economic outcomes. For policy makers, an understanding of any common cause to these biases could prove to be very helpful for any attempt to rectify them. For neuroeconomists and psychologists, such an understanding could aid the search for the biological bases of economic behavior.