Economic Inequality and Risk Taking

在过去的半个世纪里，美国和其他许多发达经济体的经济不平等现象急剧加剧。最富有的0.1%的美国人现在拥有的财富与最底层的90%的人一样多。社会科学领域的研究人员和政治领域的利益攸关方强调，日益加剧的不平等可能会对社会的社会结构以及社会中个人的健康和福祉构成威胁。这个项目旨在了解收入分配不平等的变化如何影响个人的决策。指导该项目的具体假设是，较高水平的不平等鼓励高风险/高回报的决策策略。这样的策略既有好处(对于那些获得高回报的人)，也有成本(对于那些因高风险而蒙受损失的人)。该项目将使用六个行为实验来建立经济结果不平等与决策策略之间的因果关系。该项目还将利用对来自政府来源(人口普查、美国劳工部)的大规模数据和互联网搜索数据的分析，来检验经济不平等与日常生活中的冒险行为之间的关系。这种“大数据”方法将把实验室的研究结果扩展到相应类型的高风险决策，包括财务决策(如发放发薪日贷款)以及健康决策(如吸烟或吸毒)。这项研究将阐明经济不平等如何以及为什么改变人们在决策时的优先事项，从而对个人和社会的健康和福祉产生影响。

In the last half century, economic inequality in the United States and in many other developed economies has increased dramatically. The top 0.1% of Americans now holds as much wealth as the bottom 90%. Researchers across the social sciences, and stakeholders across the political spectrum, have emphasized how growing inequality may pose threats to the social fabric of society and to the health and well-being of individuals within it. This project aims to understand how changes in the inequality of an income distribution affects the decision making of individuals. The specific hypothesis guiding this project is that higher levels of inequality encourage high risk / high reward decision strategies. Such strategies can have both benefits (for those who receive high rewards) and costs (for those who lose due to high risk). The project will use six behavioral experiments to establish the cause and effect relationship between inequality in economic outcomes and decision making strategies. The project will also employ an analysis of large-scale data from government sources (Census, US Department of Labor) and internet search data to examine the relationship between economic inequality and risk taking in everyday life. This "big data" approach will extend findings from the laboratory to consequential types of risky decisions, including financial decisions (such as taking pay day loans) as well as health decisions (such as smoking or drug use). This research will shed light on how and why economic inequality changes people's priorities when making decisions, with consequences for the health and well-being of individuals and societies.