Although response effort is considered a dimension of the cost to obtain reinforcement, little research has examined the economic impact of effort on demand for food. The goal of the present study was to explore the relationship between effort and demand. Three Sprague Dawley rats were trained to press a force transducer under a series of fixed-ratio schedules (1, 10, 18, 32, 56, 100, 180, 320, and 560) under different force requirements (5.6 g and 56 g). Thus, nominal unit price (responses / food) remained constant while minimal response force requirements varied. Using a force transducer allowed the measurement of responses failing to meet the minimal force requirement (i.e. “subcriterion responses”), an advantage over prior approaches using weighted levers to manipulate effort. Consistent with prior research, increasing the unit price decreased food consumption, and raising minimum force requirements further reduced demand for food. Additionally, increasing the force requirement produced subcriterion responses. Analysis indicated that subcriterion responses did not create incidental changes in unit price. Obtained force data revealed that including obtained forces in unit price calculations provided better predictions of consumption when compared to using criterion force requirements.

This dissertation studies statistical decision making and belief formation in face of uncertainty, that is, when agents' payoffs depend on an unknown distribution. Chapter 1 introduces and analyzes an equilibrium solution concept in which players sequentially sample to resolve strategic uncertainty over their opponents' distribution of actions. Bayesian players can sample from their opponents' distribution of actions at a cost and make optimal choices given their posterior beliefs. The solution concept makes predictions on the joint distribution of players' choices, beliefs, and decision times, and generates stochastic choice through the randomness inherent to sampling, without relying on indifference or choice mistakes. It rationalizes well-known deviations from Nash equilibrium such as the own-payoff effect and I show its novel predictions relating choices, beliefs, and decision times are supported by existing data. Chapter 2 presents experimental evidence establishing that the level of incentives affects both gameplay and mean beliefs.Holding fixed the actions of the other player, it is shown that, in the context of a novel class of dominance-solvable games --- diagonal games ---, higher incentives make subjects more likely to best-respond to their beliefs. Moreover, higher incentives result in more responsive beliefs but not necessarily less biased. Incentives affect effort --- as proxied by decision time --- and that it is effort, and not incentives directly, that accounts for the changes in belief formation. The results support models where, in addition to choice mistakes, players exhibit costly attention. Chapter 3 examines the class of diagonal games that are used in Chapter 2. Diagonal games constitute a new class of two-player dominance-solvable games which constitutes a useful benchmark in the study of cognitive limitations in strategic settings, both for exploring predictions of theoretical models and for experiments. This class of finite games allows for a disciplined way to vary two features of the strategic setting plausibly related to game complexity: the number of steps of iterated elimination of dominated actions required to reach the dominance solution and the number of actions. Furthermore, I derive testable implications of solution concepts such as level-k, endogenous depth of reasoning, sampling equilibrium, and quantal response equilibrium. Finally, Chapter 4 studies the robustness of pricing strategies when a firm is uncertain about the distribution of consumers' willingness-to-pay. When the firm has access to data to estimate this distribution, a simple strategy is to implement the mechanism that is optimal for the estimated distribution. We find that such empirically optimal mechanism delivers exponential, finite-sample profit and regret guarantees. Moreover, we provide a toolkit to evaluate the robustness properties of different mechanisms, showing how to consistently estimate and conduct valid inference on the profit generated by any one mechanism, which enables one to evaluate and compare their probabilistic revenue guarantees.

Economic game theory has been a challenge to traditional models of selfish human nature. Resource acquisition games, such as the dictator game, which have been primarily played by adults, have revealed that humans are inclined to share even when it is not in their best interest to do so. Few studies have been conducted on the development of resource distribution in children, and fewer still have explored the effect of context and level of involvement of a second player in such games. In the current study, 179 children from kindergarten, first, and second grades participated in a modified dictator game with another player. Children were randomly assigned to one of four conditions; a control condition, where they played individually with an anonymous player, or one of three experimental conditions with two players who each played with varying levels of involvement with the second player. It was found that kindergarteners shared significantly less across conditions than first and second graders, with first and second graders sharing similar amounts. The presence of another player significantly increased the amount of sharing for all grades. Additionally, second players shared significantly less than first players. Developmental and contextual patterns of sharing are discussed. / by Jason Grotuss. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis examines the role of the public in Flood Risk Management (FRM) service provision at a time when the perceptions of the distribution of benefits provided by FRM interventions are in flux, and the role the public should play in FRM highly contested among stakeholders. Two schemes have marked the revised role of the public in FRM - Partnership Funding and Flood Re - both of which challenge existing judgments of the excludability and rivalry of benefits delivered by FRM interventions. The Partnership Funding scheme allocates capital for FRM projects proportionately to the public benefits they provide, allowing communities to top-up grants through local contributions. In comparison, by increasing accessibility to affordable insurance through cross-subsidies and pricing signals, Flood Re highlights a growing recognition that the distribution of gains as a result of widespread insurance uptake is greater than the benefits received by the policyholder alone. Following the identification of these schemes, we tested their social feasibility, examining both the scale and distribution of benefits. Due to the different stages of implementation of each scheme at the time of writing this thesis, two distinct methods were developed. The Partnership Funding Chapter used field data to examine how public-private funding of flood defences has changed service provision and the public acceptance of this transition. Whereas the Flood Re chapter used computer-based experiments to hypothesize how Flood Re may make the purchase of insurance a more or less attractive investment for different types of consumer. We found that Partnership Funding enabled more FRM projects to go ahead, raised public awareness of flood risk, and improved collaboration between stakeholders, but encouraged lower-cost projects, which, in the longer term, could transfer the expense of managing residual risk to the householder. In comparison, Flood Re provided peace of mind to householders struggling to afford rises in insurance premiums, but disproportionately benefited those who annually purchased insurance. Combining this proposed inequity in Flood Re with increasing residual risks, we identify a gap in service provision for the public who cannot afford household mitigation measures. We propose that loss mitigation and flood defence should become increasingly collaborative in line with the complexities of flooding within a community. We seek a move away from the information asymmetry which currently exists between insurance providers and policyholders, and yet simultaneously call for local authorities to recognise the capacity of the public to participate in FRM, and sustain resilience in the face of rising flood risk.

Do endocrine systems influence personality and social behavior? Although animal research has identified several hormone-behavior relationships and the mechanisms that give rise to them, much less is known about hormones and social functioning in humans. This dissertation used three large data sets to investigate whether testosterone and cortisol were related to variation in personality constructs (Study 1), leadership behaviors (Study 2), and economic decision making (Studies 3 and 4). Study 1 revealed that basal testosterone was negatively associated with conscientiousness, basal cortisol was negatively associated with extraversion but positively associated with social dominance orientation, and the interaction between testosterone and cortisol was associated with the implicit power motive. Study 2 found that the testosterone-cortisol interaction predicted leadership behaviors, and Study 3 showed that basal testosterone as well as change in cortisol predicted economic decisions in the Hawk-Dove Game. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that aggression predicted decisions to punish unfair monetary offers in the Ultimatum and Third Party Punishment Games. Aggression was also related to women's changes in testosterone from before to after the games. Taken together, these studies provide important evidence that testosterone and cortisol are related to personality, leadership, and social decision making. More broadly, this dissertation lays the empirical foundation for further inquiry on the complex biological systems that regulate personality and social behavior.

Este trabalho analisou o desempenho de 31 fundos mútuos comportamentais atuantes nos EUA, Europa e Japão descritos em Santoni e Kelshiker (2010). Foram observados os desempenhos dos fundos e seus respectivos benchmarks em quatro indicadores: Índice de Sharpe, Índice de Sortino, Medida Ômega e Medida de Desempenho Comportamental. O horizonte da análise foi de 10 anos (jan/04 a dez/14) dividido em intervalos de 6, 12, 36, 60 e 120 meses. A partir da consolidação dos indicadores os fundos foram ranqueados e classificados em três faixas de desempenho: superior, intermediário e inferior. No intervalo de 120 meses não houve, na média geral, diferença de desempenho significativa (a 5%) entre os fundos e os Benchmarks. A análise por intervalos indicou que o desempenho dos fundos em relação aos Benchmarks piora conforme aumenta o prazo de aplicação. Nos intervalos mais curtos (6 e 12 meses) não houve, na média, diferença de desempenho significativa enquanto nos prazos mais longos (36 e 60 meses) o desempenho médio dos fundos foi significativamente inferior aos Benchmarks. Na média de todos os intervalos o desempenho médio dos fundos foi significativamente inferior aos Benchmarks. Dentre os indicadores utilizados, o índice de Sortino foi o que apresentou maior correlação com o desempenho geral dos fundos. / This work has analyzed the performance of 31 behavioral mutual funds operating in USA, Europe and Japan, as described in Santoni and Kelshiker (2010). It has been observed the performance of the funds and their respective Benchmarks according to four measures: Sharpe Index, Sortino Index, Omega Measure and Behavioral Perfomance Measure. The analysis covered a 10-year period (jan-04 to dec-14) slipt into intervals of 6, 12, 36, 60 and 120 months. Based on the consolidation of the performance measures, the funds have been ranked and classified into three performance categories: upper, intermediate and lower. In the 120-month interval there has not been, on average, a significant difference (at 5%) in performance between funds and Benchmarks. The analysis by intervals showed that the funds’ performance worsens in relation to the Benchmarks as the investment period increases. In shorter intervals (6 and 12 months) there has not been, on average, a significant difference in performance while in the longer intervals (36 and 60 months) the funds average performance was significantly lower than the Benchmarks. Computing the mean of all intervals, the funds average performance was significantly lower than the Benchmarks. Among the performance measures used, the Sortino Index presented the highest correlation with the general performance of the funds. / Dissertação (mestrado) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2015 / Bibliografia: p. [77]-81

In this thesis I apply the concepts of Behavioral Economics to the analysis of the individual health care behavior. In the first chapter I provide a theoretical explanation of the link between loss aversion and health anxiety leading to infrequent preventive testing. In the second chapter I analyze this link empirically based on the general population questionnaire study. In the third chapter I theoretically explore the effects of motivational crowding-in and crowding-out induced by external or self-rewards for the self-control involving tasks such as weight loss or smoking cessation.<p><p>Understanding psychological factors behind the reluctance to use preventive testing is a significant step towards a more efficient health care policy. Some people visit doctors very rarely because of a fear to receive negative results of medical inspection, others prefer to resort to medical services in order to prevent any diseases. Recent research in the field of Behavioral Economics suggests that human's preferences may be significantly influenced by the choice of a reference point. In the first chapter I study the link between loss aversion and the frequently observed tendency to avoid useful but negative information (the ostrich effect) in the context of preventive health care choices. I consider a model with reference-dependent utility that allows to characterize how people choose their health care strategy, namely, the frequency of preventive checkups. In this model an individual lives for two periods and faces a trade-off. She makes a choice between delaying testing until the second period with the risk of a more costly treatment in the future, or learning a possibly unpleasant diagnosis today, that implies an emotional loss but prevents an illness from further development. The model shows that high loss aversion decreases the frequency of preventive testing due to the fear of a bad diagnosis. Moreover, I show that under certain conditions increasing risk of illness discourages testing.<p><p>In the second chapter I provide empirical support for the model predictions. I use a questionnaire study of a representative sample of the Dutch population to measure variables such as loss aversion, testing frequency and subjective risk. I consider the undiagnosed non-symptomatic population and concentrate on medical tests for four illnesses that include hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung disease and cancer. To measure loss aversion I employ a sequence of lottery questions formulated in terms of gains and losses of life years with respect to the current subjective life expectancy. To relate this measure of loss aversion to the testing frequency I use a two-part modeling approach. This approach distinguishes between the likelihood of participation in testing and the frequency of tests for those who decided to participate. The main findings confirm that loss aversion, as measured by lottery choices in terms of life expectancy, is significantly and negatively associated with the decision to participate in preventive testing for hypertension, diabetes and lung disease. Higher loss aversion also leads to lower frequency of self-tests for cancer among women. The effect is more pronounced in magnitude for people with higher subjective risk of illness.<p><p>In the third chapter I explore the phenomena of crowding-out and crowding-in of motivation to exercise self-control. Various health care choices, such as keeping a diet, reducing sugar consumption (e.g. in case of diabetes) or abstaining from smoking, require costly self-control efforts. I study the long-run and short-run influence of external and self-rewards offered to stimulate self-control. In particular, I develop a theoretical model based on the combination of the dual-self approach to the analysis of the time-inconsistency problem with the principal-agent framework. I show that the psychological property of disappointment aversion (represented as loss aversion with respect to the expected outcome) helps to explain the differences in the effects of rewards when a person does not perfectly know her self-control costs. The model is based on two main assumptions. First, a person learns her abstention costs only if she exerts effort. Second, observing high abstention costs brings disutility due to disappointment (loss) aversion. The model shows that in the absence of external reward an individual will exercise self-control only when her confidence in successful abstention is high enough. However, observing high abstention costs will discourage the individual from exerting effort in the second period, i.e. will lead to the crowding-out of motivation. On the contrary, choosing zero effort in period 1 does not reveal the self-control costs. Hence, this preserves the person's self-confidence helping her to abstain in the second period. Such crowding-in of motivation is observed for the intermediate level of self-confidence. I compare this situation to the case when an external reward is offered in the first period. The model shows that given a sufficiently low self-confidence external reward may lead to abstention in both periods. At the same time, without it a person would not abstain in any period. However, for an intermediate self-confidence, external reward may lead to the crowding-out of motivation. For the same level of self-confidence, the absence of such reward may cause crowding-in. Overall, the model generates testable predictions and helps to explain contradictory empirical findings on the motivational effects of different types of rewards. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished