Collaborative Research on Behavioral Economics

尽管经济学家使用的理性选择模型在人类活动的广泛范围内产生了一系列见解，但心理学研究表明，它在一些系统和重要的方面是不准确的。该项目将继续将心理学上更现实的人类行为假设整合到正式的经济模型中。大部分的研究将集中在跨期选择，特别是在两个具体的更现实的假设。首先，尽管理性选择模型假设人们不会随着时间的推移而改变他们延迟满足的意愿，但证据表明，从先前的角度来看，人们希望耐心行事，而在行动的那一刻，人们表现得不耐烦。其次，理性选择模型假设人们能够正确预测未来的口味，但有证据表明，人们往往会夸大未来口味与当前口味的相似程度。本项目将调查这些错误在三种不同环境中的影响。首先，该项目将研究拖延，包括拖延行为的模式和旨在对抗拖延的政策。第二，当消费产生的快乐取决于一个人习惯或习惯的消费水平时，该项目将研究消费行为的扭曲。第三，该项目将研究有害成瘾物质的消费，特别是这些错误是否以及如何导致人们通过发展有害成瘾而伤害自己（理性选择模型只能将有害成瘾归因于运气不好）。 该项目还将调查其他更现实的假设。这项研究及其作为其一部分的更广泛议程将大大改善经济分析，并促进对旨在解决储蓄行为、成瘾、拖延、肥胖和类似现象的政策进行更现实的分析。对于许多问题，标准的理性选择模型提供了一个令人满意的工具。 但对于其他问题，比如为什么人们会拖延、产生有害的成瘾或超重，理性选择模型存在重大缺陷，需要对观察到的行为做出令人难以置信的解释，并导致有害的政策建议。 这项研究展示了经济学家如何从心理学研究中得出更现实的替代假设，以及这些替代假设如何为行为提供更好的解释，并产生更明智的政策建议。

Although the rational-choice model used by economists has yielded an array of insights across a broad range of human activities, research from psychology suggests that it is inaccurate in some systematic and important ways. This project will continue an agenda of integrating psychologically more realistic assumptions about human behavior into formal economic models. Much of the research will focus on intertemporal choice, and in particular on two specific more realistic assumptions. First, whereas the rational-choice model assumes that people do not change their willingness to delay gratification over time, evidence suggests that, from a prior perspective, people would like to behave patiently, while at the moment of action, people behave impatiently. Second, whereas the rational-choice model assumes that people correctly predict future tastes, evidence suggests people tend to exaggerate the degree to which their future tastes will resemble their current tastes. This project will investigate the implications of these errors in three distinct environments. First, the project will study procrastination, both patterns of procrastinatory behavior and policies designed to combat procrastination. Second, the project will study distortions in consumption behavior when the pleasure generated by consumption depends on one's accustomed or habitual consumption level. Third, the project will study the consumption of harmful addictive substances, and in particular whether and how these errors can cause people to hurt themselves by developing harmful addictions (the rational-choice model can attribute harmful addictions only to bad luck). The project will also investigate additional more realistic assumptions.This research, and the broader agenda of which it is a part, will dramatically improve economic analysis, and promote a more realistic analysis of policies designed to address savings behavior, addiction, procrastination, obesity, and similar phenomena. For many questions, the standard rational-choice model provides a satisfactory apparatus. But for other questions, such as why do people procrastinate, develop harmful addictions, or are overweight, the rational-choice model is importantly flawed, requiring implausible explanations for observed behavior and leading to harmful policy recommendations. The research demonstrates how economists can derive alternative more realistic assumptions from research in psychology, and how these alternative assumptions can provide better explanations for behavior, and yield more sensible policy recommendations.