Suchergebnisse

"Theories abound for why individuals give to charity. We conduct a field experiment with donors to a Yale University service club to test the impact of a promise of public recognition on giving. Some may claim that they respond to an offer of public recognition not to improve their social standing, but rather to motivate others to give. To tease apart these two theories, we conduct a laboratory experiment with undergraduates, and find no evidence to support the alternative, altruistic motivation. We conclude that charitable gifts increase in response to the promise of public recognition primarily because of individuals' desire to improve their social image"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"Policymakers and microfinance institutions (MFIs) often claim to target poor entrepreneurs who then invest loan proceeds in their businesses. Typically in nonresearch settings these claims are assessed using readily available but unverified self-reports from client loan applications. Alternatively, independent surveyors could directly elicit how borrowers spent their loan proceeds. That too, however, could suffer from deliberate misreporting. We use data from the Peru and the Philippines in which independent surveyors elicited loan use both directly (i.e., by asking how individuals spent their loan proceeds) and indirectly (i.e., through a list-randomization technique that allows individuals to hide their answer from the surveyor). We find that direct elicitation under-reports the non-enterprise uses of loan proceeds"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

Questions remain as to whether results from experimental economics are generalizable to real decisions in nonlaboratory settings. Furthermore, questions persist about whether social capital helps mitigate information asymmetries in credit markets. I examine whether behavior in two laboratory games, Trust and a Public Goods, predicts loan repayments to a Peruvian group-lending microfinance program. Since this program relies on social capital to enforce repayment, this tests the external validity of the games. Individuals identified as "trustworthy" by the Trust Game are indeed less likely to default on their loans. No similar support is found for the game's identification of "trusting" individuals.

Thinking like an economist -- The power of economics -- Economics and life -- Specialization and exchange -- Supply and demand -- Markets -- Elasticity -- Efficiency -- Government intervention -- Microeconomics : thinking like a microeconomist -- Individual decisions -- Consumer behavior -- Behavioral economics : a closer look at decision making -- Game theory and strategic thinking -- Information -- Time and uncertainty -- Firm decisions -- The costs of production -- Perfect competition -- Monopoly -- Monopolistic competition and oligopoly -- The factors of production -- International trade -- Public economics -- Externalities -- Public goods and common resources -- Taxation and the public budget -- Poverty, inequality, and discrimination -- Political choices -- Public policy and choice architecture -- Macroeconomics : thinking like a macroeconomist -- The data of macroeconomics -- Measuring the wealth of nations -- The cost of living -- Economic growth and unemployment -- Economic growth -- Unemployment and the demand for labor -- The economy in the short and long run -- Aggregate demand and aggregate supply -- Fiscal policy -- The financial system and institutions -- The basics of finance -- Money and the monetary system -- Inflation -- Financial crisis -- International policy issues -- Open-market macroeconomics -- Development economics