The most important financial source for behavioral economics is the Russell Sage Foundation (RSF). The most prominent behavioral economists among the RSF’s twenty-six member Behavioral Economics Roundtable (BER) are Kahneman, Tversky, Thaler, Camerer, Loewenstein, Rabin, and Laibson. The...

Verbraucherpolitische Maßnahmen müssen dort ansetzen, wo sich Verbraucher nicht selbst schützen können. Notwendige Bedingung für eine effektive Gestaltung verbraucherpolitischer Maßnahmen ist daher das Wissen um das tatsächliche Verhalten von Verbrauchern. Gerade im Bereich...

In this paper it is argued that locus of control beliefs and preferences concerning state action negatively affect the formation of new firms in former socialist countries. For this purpose Kirzner's theory of costless entrepreneurship is reviewed and criticized. German reunification, in which...

We consider a decision maker who enjoys choosing from a varied set of alternatives. Building on behavioral evidence, we propose testable axioms which characterize preference for variety, and provide a representation theorem. We go on to illustrate the potential effects of preference for variety...

Economists use the standard rational model to predict behaviour under a new policy regime and to evaluate the policy according to its impact on the welfare of the people affected. Experimental observation of behaviour casts some doubt on the predictive accuracy of the standard model, but the...

This paper explores the socially optimal level of insurance given that individuals are subject to behavioral biases, in particular narrow framing and loss aversion. The central issue of this normative analysis is whether or not a social welfare function (SWF) should take into consideration the...

Most economic models are based on the self-interest hypothesis that assumes that material self-interest exclusively motivates all people. Experimental economists have gathered overwhelming evidence in recent years, however, that systematically refutes the self-interest hypothesis, suggesting...

This paper surveys recent work on the evolutionary origins of preferences. We are especially interested in the circumstances under which evolution would push preferences away from the self-interested perfectly-rational expected utility maximization of classical economic theory in order to...

We consider a decision maker who enjoys choosing from a varied set of alternatives. Building on behavioral evidence, we propose testable axioms which characterize preference for variety, and provide a representation theorem. We go on to illustrate the potential effects of preference for variety...

Behavioural economics attracted attention from environmental economists: it should help to understand why people do not respond to environmental policy measures, based on neoclassical assumptions, as predicted by theory. Moreover, understanding motives and driving forces behind pro-social,...