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Economics has the power to make the world a better, happier and safer place: this book shows you how our world is in a mess. The challenges of climate change, inequality, hunger and a global pandemic mean our way of life seems more imperilled and society more divided than ever; but economics can help! From parenting to organ donation, housing to anti-social behaviour, economics provides the tools we need to fix the biggest issues of today. Far from being a means to predict the stock market or enrich the elite, economics provides a lens through which we can better understand how things work, design clever solutions and create the conditions in which we can all flourish. With a healthy dose of optimism, and packed with stories of economics in everyday situations, Erik Angner demonstrates the methods he and his fellow economists use to help improve our lives and the society in which we live. He shows us that economics can be a powerful force for good, awakening the possibility of a happier, more just and more sustainable world. more...

Published April 13, 2020.

Behavioral economics has long defined itself in opposition to neoclassical economics, but recent developments suggest a synthesis may be on the horizon. In particular, several economists have argued that behavioral factors can be incorporated into standard theory, and that the days of behavioral economics are therefore numbered. This paper explores the proposed synthesis and argues that it is distinctly behavioral in nature – not neoclassical. Far from indicating that behavioral economics as a stand-alone research program is over, the proposed synthesis represents the consummate conversion of neoclassical economists into behavioral ones. more...

This study employs a novel experimental paradigm to examine crowdout effects in volunteering. Using a framework modelled upon money donation experiments, we examine the impact of ‘forced’ volunteering on the amount of time volunteered. We find that subjects exposed to forced volunteering on the mean voluntarily donate less time than subjects in the control condition. Among religious subjects, the crowdout is 52.8%, suggesting warm-glow giving. Among non-religious subjects, the crowdout is 138%, implying altruistic giving. Thus, policies mandating volunteer activity may be associated with sizeable crowdout effects and might have heterogeneous effects across subpopulations. more...

Il tema del decision making è diventato centrale per la gestione della complessità nel mondo odierno: gran parte delle attività umane (finanza, scienza, medicina, arte e la vita in generale) può essere interpretata come una questione di persone che fanno un certo tipo di scelte. Questo volume è un’introduzione rigorosa, ma al tempo stesso accattivante, a uno degli sviluppi più recenti delle scienze sociali, avvalendosi anche dei risultati della psicologia cognitiva. L’economia comportamentale, infatti, parte dal presupposto che molte decisioni non siano assunte in base a criteri logici e razionali, ma che anzi spesso i comportamenti degli individui siano dettati da altri fattori; in base a questo assunto le “deviazioni dalla razionalità perfetta” non sono trascurabili (come ritenuto dall’economia neoclassica) ma anzi sistematiche e dunque abbastanza prevedibili, tanto da garantire lo sviluppo di nuove teorie descrittive della decisione. Partendo sempre dalle fondamenta della scuola economica neoclassica, il volume riesce a spiegare chiaramente i concetti fondamentali dell’economia comportamentale e illustrarne le intuizioni che vi stanno dietro. Una ricca selezione di applicazioni di economia, management, marketing, scienza politica e politica pubblica corredano la trattazione, mostrando quanto l’economia comportamentale possa essere uno strumento fondamentale per le persone e per il decisore pubblico. Non è richiesta una conoscenza avanzata della matematica. more...

A Course in Behavioral Economics 2e is an accessible and self-contained introduction to the field of behavioral economics. The author introduces students to the subject by comparing and contrasting its theories and models with those of mainstream economics. Full of examples, exercises and problems, this book emphasises the intuition behind the concepts and is suitable for students from a wide range of disciplines. more...