"Happiness economics" in reverse: Does happiness affect productivity?

Daniel Sgroi, 26 July 2010

Happiness economics typically looks at how macro-level variables such as economic growth affect happiness. This column turns such thinking on its head and asks whether a rise in happiness might change behaviour at the micro-level, looking specifically at productivity. Experiments suggest that happiness raises productivity by increase workers' effort. Economists may need to take the emotional state of economic agents seriously.

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One of the biggest growth areas in economics over the last few years has been “happiness economics”.

Topics: Frontiers of economic research, Labour markets, Productivity and Innovation
Tags: experimental economics, Happiness economics, productivity, psychology

Experimental economics: evolution, methods and achievements

Robert Sugden interviewed by Romesh Vaitilingam, 26 Mar 2010

Robert Sugden talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about the new book of which he is a co-author, ‘Experimental Economics: Rethinking the Rules’. They discuss the development of experimental research in economics over the past 30 years, the design of laboratory experiments and the achievements of these methods in increasing understanding of economic behaviour. The interview was recorded in London in March 2010.

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Topics: Frontiers of economic research
Tags: experiment design, experimental economics

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Neuroeconomic theory: Using neuroscience to understand the bounds of rationality

Juan D. Carrillo , Isabelle Brocas, 18 March 2010

Why do people persistently make seemingly irrational decisions? This column introduces neuroeconomic theory, which uses neuroscience and neurobiology to try to shed light on the black box of human decision-making.

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People often fail to make “rational” decisions. Economic agents are subject to multiple biases that affect the way they perceive events, act upon them, and learn from experience. Most of these anomalies are remarkably persistent and are widely documented in real world and laboratory environments by behavioural data.

Topics: Frontiers of economic research
Tags: Behavioural economics, experimental economics, neuroeconomics

So you want to run an experiment, now what? Some simple rules of thumb for optimal experimental design

John List, Sally Sadoff, Mathis Wagner, 20 February 2010

Experimental economics represents a strong growth industry. In the past several decades the method has expanded beyond intellectual curiosity, meriting consideration alongside the other more traditional empirical approaches used in economics. Accompanying this growth is an influx of new experimenters who are in need of straightforward direction to make their designs more powerful. This column provides several simple rules of thumb that researchers can apply to improve the efficiency of their experimental designs.

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Within economics, measurement approaches can be divided into two main categories: estimation of models that make use of naturally-occurring data and approaches wherein the analyst herself governs the data generation process.

Topics: Frontiers of economic research
Tags: experiment design, experimental economics, randomisation

New Directions in Welfare

29 June - 1 July 2009, St Catherine's College, Oxford University

This 3 day conference at St Catherine's College, Oxford University hosts speakers from Oxford, LSE, UCL, World Bank brings together many of the new and emerging themes in the economics of welfare. Theory tracks focus on social choice and welfare, and other related aspects of welfare economic theory and public economics. Empirical/applied tracks focus on policy areas including health, development, social policy, environment, education, poverty reduction, non-monetary measures of economic progress etc. Papers on applied econometrics or experimental work relevant to welfare economic theory and assumptions about human behaviour also welcome.

Organizer(s):
Paul Anand
Type:
Conference
Location:
St Catherine's College, Oxford University
Attendance:
Open attendance
Contact:
paul.anand@education.ox.ac.uk
Institution:
The event is being organised from a number of universities led by the Open University.
More information:
http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/welfareconomicstheory/

Disclaimer: Vox is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.

Topic(s):
Frontiers of economic research
Tags:
development, economic theory, education, ethics, EU policies, experimental economics, Frontiers of economic research, health economics, migration, poverty and income inequality, welfare state and social Europe

Experimental results on the inter-generational transmission of economic values

Marco Cipriani, Paola Giuliano, Olivier Jeanne, 1 August 2007

Through an experimental game in which participants had incentives to reveal their true preferences, we show that, surprisingly, there is no intergenerational transmission of public-mindedness between parents and their children.

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The nature of human behaviour assumed in most economic models is based on the ‘Homo Economicus’ assumption – everyone is out for him or her self. This makes economic theory easy, or at least easier, since it minimises the joint-ness of decision making.

Topics: Welfare state and social Europe
Tags: experimental economics, human behaviour, intergenerational transmission, public mindedness

Experimental economics and policy design

Steffen Huck, Jean-Robert Tyran, 29 June 2007

Experimental economics opens the door to better policy design. Laboratory experiments should be used to try out proposed policy changes on a small scale before causing upheaval in the large national economy - like wind tunnels are used in car and plane design.

The general public and many politicians tend to be sceptical that unregulated markets are good for people’s wellbeing. Economists have known forever that laissez-faire yields the first best only under fairly unrealistic assumptions. The theory of industrial organization describes when markets work, when they fail and how such failures can be remedied.

URL: http://www.cepr.org/pubs/PolicyInsights/CEPR_Policy_Insight_006.asp
Topics: Frontiers of economic research
Tags: experimental economics, markets, trust problem

Experimental economics and policy design

Steffen Huck, Jean-Robert Tyran, 30 June 2007

Experimental economics opens the door to better policy design. Laboratory experiments should be used to try out proposed policy changes on a small scale before causing upheaval in the real economy - just as wind tunnels are used in car and plane design.

a

A

The general public and many politicians tend to be sceptical that unregulated markets are good for people’s well-being. Economists have known forever that laissez-faire yields the first best only under fairly unrealistic assumptions. The theory of industrial organisation describes when markets work, when they fail and how such failures can be remedied.

Topics: Frontiers of economic research
Tags: experimental economics, markets, trust problem

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