Israel M. Kirzner is the 2006 winner of The International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research (the FSF-Nutek Award). In this Prize Lecture he argues that a number of those who have commented on his work have misunderstood certain aspects of his theoretical system, and as a...

Preference for control affects investment behavior. Participants of laboratory experiments invest different amount of money in a risky asset when face with two different methods of control which have identical payoff structure and probability distribution, but provide different sense of control....

Good decision-making often requires people to perceive and handle a myriad of statistical correlations. Notably, optimal portfolio theory depends upon a sophisticated understanding of the correlation among financial assets. In this paper, we examine people's understanding of correlation using a...

Das Management von Enron bediente sich moralisch fragwürdiger Praktiken ("Bad Practices"), die zu dem spektakulären Aufstieg und Fall des Unternehmens beitrugen. Wie konnten sich diese Bad Practices etablieren? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, betrachten wir vier Verhaltensmechanismen und...

Economists typically predict that people are inherently selfish; however, experimental evidence suggests that this is often not the case. In particular, delegating a choice (such as a wage) to the performing party may imbue this party with a sense of responsibility, leading to improved outcomes...

Um politische Entscheidungen zum Umgang mit dem Terrorismus in Deutschland treffen zu können, ist eine eingehende Analyse dieses Risikos in allen seinen Facetten vonnöten. Eine Grundlage dafür bildet die Schätzung des objektiven Risikos. Letzteres wurde im Teilprojekt "manmade hazards" der...

A number of Marxist scholars have tied aspects of Marx's thought to certain Aristotelian categories, yet remarkably little is said of Marx's dialectical materialism in this literature. Here we attempt to lay a foundation for such an effort, paying particular attention to the way in which...

Partnering with a savings product provider in Kenya, we tested the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate of individuals with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The...

We attempt to formulate and explain two types of self-fulfilling prophecy, called the Pygmalion effect (if a supervisor thinks her subordinates will succeed, they are more likely to succeed) and the Galatea effect (if a person thinks he will succeed, he is more likely to succeed). To this...

In this chapter we propose a new, dual-process model of labor supply, which incorporates both cognitive and affective aspects of decision-making. Consistent with evidence from neuroscience, the worker may experience conflicting cognitive and affective motivations during the workday. In...