Background: Recent evidence suggests that individual variation in risk taking is partly due to genetic factors. Methodology/Principal Findings: We explore how self-reported risk taking in different domains correlates with variation in the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4). Past studies conflict...

Why is private investment so low in Gulf compared to Western countries? We investigate cross-regional differences in trust and reference points for trustworthiness as possible factors. Experiments controlling for cross-regional differences in institutions and beliefs about trustworthiness reveal...

Ballot initiatives are consequential and common, with total spending on initiative campaigns in the US rivaling that of Presidential campaigns. Observational studies using regression approaches on observational data have alternately found that initiative campaign spending cannot affect...

Science and innovation have always been the key forces behind agricultural growth in particular and economic transformation in general. More specifically, the ability to add value to agricultural production via the application of scientific knowledge to entrepreneurial activities stands out as...

We applied an innovation framework to sustainable livestock development research projects in Africa and Asia. The focus of these projects ranged from pastoral systems to poverty and ecosystems services mapping to market access by the poor to fodder and natural resource management to livestock...

Existing learning models attribute failures to learn to a lack of data. We model a different barrier. Given the large number of dimensions one could focus on when using a technology, people may fail to learn because they failed to notice important features of the data they possess. We conduct a...

Since the United States changed its guidelines in 1984, many industrialized nations have included efficiencies defenses in their rules for judging whether mergers and other activities that might lessen competition are on balance desirable. This paper was written for an OECD competition policy...

The rise of digital networks is diffusing power to new players. Fourth in a series on soft power.

The human mind tends to excessively discount the value of delayed rewards relative to immediate ones, with “hot†affective processes believed to drive desires for short-term gratification. Supporting this view, recent findings demonstrate that sadness exacerbates financial impatience...

Individuals tend toward status quo bias: preferring existing options over new ones. There is a countervailing phenomenon: Humans naturally dispose of objects that disgust them, such as foul-smelling food. But what if the source of disgust is independent of the object? We induced disgust via a...