Behavioral Economics in a Laboratory-Based Token Economy

描述(申请人提供)：在过去的几十年里，行为研究中最重要的理论进步之一是经济学和心理学观点的整合--也就是后来被称为行为经济学的东西。行为经济学的一个主要见解是，行为总是受到约束--收入受限、选择有限、关于世界的信息不完整和不确定--而我们的理论需要考虑这些因素。广义上讲，行为经济学是一种理解这些约束如何影响行为的方法。近年来，它还被卓有成效地应用于一系列与健康有关的问题，包括成瘾、赌博和肥胖，仅举几例。因此，行为经济学不仅具有理论意义，而且具有重要的实践意义。本研究的目的是开发一种基于实验室的系统，用于从经济学的角度检查行为。这项拟议研究的核心是一种代币经济系统，在该系统中，代币被赚取、积累并交换为其他商品。这种行为很容易从经济学的角度来看待：代币的生产类似于工资，汇率类似于商品的价格，交换机会的生产与采购成本，代币的积累与储蓄，代币与其他商品的交换与支出。因此，令牌系统提供了一个受控和易于分析的环境，在其中可以探索行为和经济变量之间的相互作用。这样的系统能够在多个分析层次上详细衡量经济行为(例如，劳动力、消费、偏好、储蓄)，并与广泛的经济变量(例如，价格、工资、利息、通货膨胀)相关。简而言之，代币系统为行为经济学的基本概念提供了一个实验试验台。在广泛的动物研究的基础上，本研究使用鸽子作为工人在一个微型和自给自足的经济中。这最大化了实验控制，并允许对经济分析中有用的变量进行系统操作。同时，代币制度模仿了以货币为基础的经济制度。这带来了一系列以前从未在实验室研究过的经济变量，并随之而来的是对经济行为进行实验分析的令人兴奋的新可能性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Among the most significant theoretical advances in the study of behavior over the past few decades has been the integration of economic and psychological perspectives-what has come to be called behavioral economics. A chief insight of behavioral economics is that behavior is always subject to constraints-restricted income, limited options, incomplete and uncertain information about the world-and that our theories need to take such factors into account. Behavioral economics, broadly construed, is an approach to understanding how these constraints impact behavior. It has also been fruitfully applied in recent years to a wide range of health- related problems, including addictions, gambling, and obesity, to name just a few. Behavioral economics is thus of practical as well as theoretical importance. The aim of the present research is to develop a laboratory-based system for examining behavior from an economic perspective. The centerpiece of the proposed research is a token-economic system, in which tokens are earned, accumulated, and exchanged for other commodities. Such behavior is readily viewed in economic terms: the production of tokens is akin to a wage, exchange rate to the price of a good, the production of exchange opportunities to procurement costs, accumulation of tokens to savings, and exchange of tokens for other goods to expenditures. As such, token systems provide a controlled and analytically tractable environment in which to explore interactions between behavior and economic variables. Such systems enable detailed measurement of economic behavior (e.g., labor, consumption, preference, savings) on multiple levels of analysis and in relation to a wide range of economic variables (e.g., prices, wages, interest, inflation). A token system, in short, provides an experimental test bed for fundamental concepts in behavioral economics. Building on an extensive body of animal research, the present research uses pigeons as workers in a miniature and self-contained economy. This maximizes experimental control, and permits systematic manipulation of variables useful in an economic analysis. At the same time, the token system is modeled after monetary-based economic systems. This brings within reach a wide range of economic variables never before studied in the laboratory, and with it, exciting new possibilities for an experimental analysis of economic behavior.