This paper examines the measurement of social welfare, poverty and inequality taking into account reference-dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity—aspects emphasized in Prospect Theory—to social welfare measurement. We suggest a new notion of equivalent income, the income...

Several empirical studies provide evidence that their actual health state affects people’s attitudes towards health and medical care in hypothetical health states. In the tradition of behavioural economics this paper considers the actual health state as a point of reference and builds a model...

This study proposes an analytical framework towards behavioral political economy of institutional change. It considers institutional changes as central government’s choices under uncertainty, which are largely driven by the strategic outcomes in a behavioral coordination game between local...

Existing experimental research on behavior in weakest-link games shows overwhelmingly the inability of people to coordinate on the efficient equilibrium, especially in larger groups. We hypothesize that people will be able to coordinate on efficient outcomes, provided they have sufficient...

This paper investigates how heterogeneity in contestants’ investment costs affects the competition intensity in a dynamic elimination contest. Theory predicts that the absolute level of investment costs has no effect on the competition intensity in homogeneous interactions. Relative cost...