Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Even though standard economic theory traditionally ignored any motives that may drive incentivized social decision making except for the maximization of personal consumption utility, the idea that 'preferences for fairness' (following social norms) might have an economically tangible impact appeared relatively early. I trace the evolution of these ideas from the first experiments on bargaining to the tests of the hypothesis that pro-sociality in general is driven by the desire to adhere to social norms. I show how a recent synthesis of economics approach with psychology, sociology, and evolutionary human biology can give rise to a mathematically rigorous, psychologically plausible, and falsifiable theory of social norms. Such a theory can predictwhich norms should emerge in each specific (social) context and is capable of organizing diverse observations in economics and other disciplines. It provides the first glimpse at how a unified theory of normative decision making might look like.

Abstract
We propose a new methodology to systematically transform presurveyed argument preferences into fictional narratives, that can help people to imagine the consequences of future events, and measure how they impact willingness to pay for a public policy. We apply narrative theory to construct two short narratives that depict an imaginary future, bleak due to climate change or energy dependence, and show experimentally that exposure to these narratives increases contributions in a Public Goods game, framed as payments toward the construction of new nuclear plant in The Netherlands. Our results suggest that fictional narratives can be used (and misused) as a tool of economic policy that allows conveying relevant information to people about complex issues. We discuss the ethical use of narratives and the value of their transparent construction for democratic will-formation and policy implementation when abstract factual information can be difficult to process or comprehend.