World Economic Forum sur Twitter : "Why #economists need a new understanding of human behaviour #economics @WorldBank. Why economists need a new understanding of human behaviour. Economists have long known that people are rarely as coherent, unbiased, foresighted, selfish, or fixed in their preferences as standard economic models make them out to be. Until recently, however, individual behaviour that could not be explained as self-interested and rational was deemed not to matter at the aggregate level (Fehr and Tyran 2005). Policies could thus be designed as if people behaved in a rational and self-interested way, and most economists focused only on policies that changed incentives and improved the availability of information. Economists largely ignored the findings of psychologists and sociologists as a basis for policies to change behaviour. Three main principles of the World Development Report The World Bank’s latest World Development Report shows that incorporating behavioural insights can benefit development initiatives.
In the Development Report, psychological and sociological approaches to decision-making take centre stage. Figure 1. Figure 2. References. Witter / ?
Opinion. Davos. Predictably Irrational: subjecting the "rational consumer" hypothesis to scientific scrutiny. Over the weekend, I finally picked up and read Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, an accessible intro to the subject of behavioral economics -- that is, the study of how people behave in the real world and why that varies from the predictions made by classical economic theory (which predicts that people behave rationally and in their own interests).
This is a subject I've been very interested in for some years and I'd read and blogged a lot of material about Ariely's work, but somehow never got 'round to reading it for myself. I'm very glad I did! Ariely's a very engaging writer and a smart social scientist with a knack for illustrating his hypotheses about human behavior through elegant and simple experiments. For example, Ariely describes a series of experiments that measure work performance among randomly selected groups of people where one group is paid nothing, one group is paid a little, and a third is paid a lot. Marginal Revolution. Actualités du CEPII.
Networking, citation of academic research, and premature death. Academic citations are a popular measure of research output, but they also serve strategic and social functions. This column examines the importance of scholars promoting their own research by surveying the citation counts of prominent economists who passed away prematurely. One approach for measuring the impact and diffusion of academic research is by studying the quantity and pattern of citations to published research findings. The literature on the diffusion of technological innovations frequently uses patent citation data to study the spread of technological knowledge (for example, the volume by Jaffe and Trajtenberg (2002)). Citations are a data source for investigating linkages from results to subsequent research more generally in the study of the dissemination and creation of ideas and knowledge.The study of citation patterns may be useful for addressing a variety of policy concerns about organisation, funding and incentives in academic research.
Our results are mixed. The Baseline Scenario. Une interview d`Esther Duflo, du Poverty Action Lab sur Nouvelobs.com. Vous avez mené de nombreuses expériences dans le domaine de l’éducation. Pouvez-vous nous en donner un exemple ? - La première s’est déroulée dans deux villes indiennes, Bombay et Baroda, dans des écoles publiques de bidonvilles pour évaluer l’efficacité du soutien scolaire. Nous avons travaillé avec l’ONG Pratam, qui recrutait des jeunes filles tout juste sorties de l’école secondaire pour épauler des élèves les plus en difficulté du CE1 au CM2, en leur donnant deux heures de soutien par jour en lecture, écriture et mathématique. 60% des enfants de ces écoles ne savent pas lire une phrase entière.
Ce programme, qui recrute des jeunes filles quasi bénévoles, coûte très peu cher. Pratam avait de l’argent pour mettre une personne dans chaque école. Aujourd’hui, l’école est obligatoire dans la plupart des pays, y compris des pays en développement. . - C’est l’autre grande question que nous nous posons au Poverty Action Lab dans le domaine de l’éducation. Creative Capitalism: Esther Duflo. Fighting Poverty Efficiently - Forbes.com.
La politique économique à l’épreuve des faits. Race Matters - Esther Duflo. Cours - Chaire internationale-Savoirs contre pauvreté - Esther Duflo - College de France. Combattre la pauvreté, par Esther Duflo. Advertising blogs. Even fashion giants Chanel and LVMH forced to economise - Times Online. The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back. The Economist.