This paper analyses the behavior of an individual who wants to maximize his utility function, but he is not able to evaluate it. There are many ways to choose a single alternative from a given set. We show that a unique utility maximizing procedure exists. Choices induced by this optimal...

Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent experimental evidence suggests that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism to maintain cooperation among humans. In this...

This discussion paper led to a chapter in: (S.N. Durlauf & L.E. Blume (Eds.))<I>The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics</I> 2nd ed. Vol.4, pp. 402-406. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.<P> Interacting agents in finance represent a behavioral, agent-based approach in which financial markets are...</p></i>

<b>Purpose:</b><br>This paper addresses the nature, formalization, and neural bases of (affective) social ties anddiscusses the relevance of ties for health economics. A social tie is defined as an affectiveweight attached by an individual to the well-being of another individual ('utilityinterdependence')....

This paper reviews three distinct strategies in recent economics for using the concept of social identity in the explanation of individual behavior: Akerlof and Kranton’s neoclassical approach, Sen’s commitment approach, and Kirman et al.’s complexity approach. The primary focus is the...

Kahneman and Tversky and their behavioral economics stand in a long tradition of applying mathematics to human behavior. In the seventeenth century, attempts to describe rational behavior in mathematical terms run into problems with the formulation of the St. Petersburg paradox. Bernoulli’s...

See also <I>Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect</I>, <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272707000679">Journal of Public Economics'</A>, 2008, 92, 34-53.<P> This experimental study investigates how behavior changes after punishment for an unkind action. It also studies how fairness perceptions affect the reaction to...</p></a></i>

We provide estimates of the rebound effect for car transport in Denmark, using a rich data set with individual household data on car use, fuel efficiency, and car as well as household characteristics. A demand model is estimated in first differences; the availability of households in the sample...

This paper provides an overview of the work of Herbert Simon and his ideas about rational decision making. By his own standards, Simon is an economist who works in the tradition of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. The central theme in Simon’s research is how human beings organize themselves in...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Social Networks</I> (2012). Vol. 34(4), pages 161-179.<P> This paper proposes a new measure for a group's ability to lead society to adopt their standard of behavior, which in particular takes account of the time the group takes to convince the whole...</p></i>