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Priming as a tool for triggering prosocial behavior
Tížková, Tereza ; Polák, Petr (advisor) ; Godar, Sarah (referee)
Priming is a cognitive bias influencing, in various forms, daily life of people. This paper examines the effect of priming in economics, where subjects are often forced to make decisions under uncertainty. The empirical part of this paper introduces the experiment, where subjects were manipulated towards or against prosocial behaviour with verbal priming techniques. The experiment results show that priming to specific concepts correlated with a tendency to act prosocially actually increases the subsequent degree of prosocial behaviour, although the same evidence has not been found with the opposite case.
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Choice Architecture and the Pension System in the Czech Republic
Polenova, Daria ; Štěpánek, Martin (advisor) ; Janský, Petr (referee)
This thesis analyzes the influence of behavioral economics on a pension system. The research was performed in order to compare Czech and Swedish pension plans from behavioral economics' point of view. Survey logistic regression was applied to analyze the differences and similarities in the opinions of Czech and Swedish citizens. Data used for the analysis were obtained from Eurobarometer 76.2 (2011). The results show that both nations have similar opinions regarding basic questions about pension. Yet, regardless the fact, that both nations support the idea of elder people delaying the retirement, the number of employed Czech seniors is sustainably lower, than the same number for Swedish elder residents. This supports the idea that Swedish pension plan, to which policymakers had applied some behavioral economics' principles, is doing better than Czech scheme in maximizing employment. Therefore, in fulfilling one of the retirement policy's main goals. And proves, that people can be influenced to postpone the retirement. Furthermore, the analysis shows that people tend to have unrealistic expectations and consequently cannot evaluate some situations correctly, and need to be given a "nudge" to prevent unwelcome impact on an individual's life and on a whole country's economy.
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Use of the anchoring effect in marketing communication
Režný, Michal ; Vranka, Marek (advisor) ; Báča, Ladislav (referee)
This bachelor thesis is dedicated to the study of the anchoring effect, one of the most common cognitive biases, and its potential use in marketing communication. The first section of the first part provides a theoretical summary of the anchoring effect as a psychological phenomenon in the form in which it was defined by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the early 1970s. It addresses the possible explanations of anchoring and also gives a brief introduction to related cognitive biases, understanding of which is crucial for further orientation in the use of anchoring in marketing communication. The main body of the first part is formed by a theoretical research of academic literature and consequently conducted studies and experiments. The terminological discrepancies between fields when it comes to anchoring in marketing communication are dealt with special attention. A considerable part of this section is dedicated to the different types of use of anchoring in marketing communication. The second part of this paper is an empirical one. It describes an experiment conducted by the author of this work with the objective of studying the effect of anchoring and its usability in practice on the example of fictitious car commercials. The results of the experiment suggest that while there is an evidence...
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The Truth Behind the Lies: The Experiment
Harutyunyan, Mikayel ; Chytilová, Julie (advisor) ; Matoušek, Jindřich (referee)
The Truth Behind The Lies: The Experiment. Abstract The following thesis presents an economic experiment exploring the patterns of cheating behaviors among secondary school students. The students filled in the Big Five and the Dark Triad personality inventories, for which they were rewarded. The payoff in sweets was determined by a die roll. Since the outcomes of the die throw were known only to the subjects, they could decide whether to report the real outcome of the die roll or deceive. Subsequent analysis showed that a certain fraction of participants cheated, but some of them claimed a non-maximal payoff. We also find the appeal to honesty ineffective in reducing the cheating rate. Additionally, we find positive correlation between narcissism, extraversion and cheating, while openness to experience, neuroticism and Morality, a facet of agreeableness, covary negatively with dishonesty. Individuals with poor academic ability cheat less, while subjects who perform better at the Cognitive Reflection Test appear to deceive more. Furthermore, indicators of "unstable" family environment (divorced or unemployed parents) are positively associated with cheating, whilst the effect of a more affluent family background is equivocal. Ultimately, females seem to forgo the opportunity of cheating to a full extent and...
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A behavioral analysis of market failures
Urbanová, Aneta ; Sieber, Martina (advisor) ; Vlček, Josef (referee)
The thesis deals with a contemporary stream of the behavioral economics at the labour market in connection with a divergence to the neoclassical theory based on explicit assumption of rationality. The existing theoretical approaches and the examples of experiments are introduced in the theoretical part. The irrational impacts on labour market is defined by the amount of wage, unemployment, education, but on the other hand also by motivation, loss aversion, prejudices and other cognitive biases in human decision making process. The practical part is based on the standardized questionnaire survey in which the respondents were given some simplified decision making dilemmas in context of the labour market. The aim of the thesis is to observe their tendency to choose not always the most effective option and to validate the impact of irrational factors on decision making according to the theoretical approaches. Key words: Behavioral economics, limited rationality, market failures, labour market, prospect theory, heuristics, biases
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Nudging v zdravotníctve - cesta k vyšším mieram očkovania?
Turányi, Samuel ; Chytilová, Helena (advisor) ; Fidler, Armin (referee)
This master thesis investigates impact of nudging on the level of vaccination rates against measles by utilizing insights from behavioral economics. In the theoretical part, brief overview of behavioral economics and its contributions to health economics is outlined. Additionally, direct application of nudging concepts and behavioral features in healthcare is illustrated, primarily focused on the vaccination issue. In the analytical part, two neighboring countries have been chosen for the research, Austria and Czech Republic and their regions Vorarlberg, Prague and South Bohemia. Their rates of vaccination based on data gathered from both private institutions as well as public sources were compared using documentary comparative analysis as a research method. Two hypotheses were set for testing: (1) Czech mandatory vaccination policy against measles had been historically more effective than Austrian opt-in system and (2) Choice architecture had profound effect on levels of coverage. None of the hypotheses was refuted. Research was narrowed down to examination of measles due to data availability. In final part, implications from findings were elaborated on. Subsequent policy recommendations were presented, referring to the type of vaccination system, incentives, behavioral as well as historical factors and concepts of nudging like peer pressure, framing, priming, loss aversion or three heuristics.
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Evaluation of behavioral insights with its aplication in the Czech Republic
Makovec, Petr ; Cingl, Lubomír (advisor) ; Štěpánek, Pavel (referee)
Implementing behavioral insights into policy making goes along well with widespread effort for increased efficiency. From the public budget administrator point of view, this efficiency is crucial since it directly affects the current state of the budget. The theoretical part of this thesis consists of description of the most important parts of behavioral economics that can be used during the creation and setting of public policies. It also consists of brief description of current behavioral insights teams that are already using the insights representing more realistic behavior and decision making of individuals. In the analytical part of this thesis, I provide methodology of experiment evaluation as well as result extrapolation facets and risks. Those experiments usually take place before any reasonable extension is made. I also provide financial analysis of several experiments, should they be extended to larger group of individuals. In the last chapter of the analytical part, I discuss the possibilities of implementation of behavioral economics in the Czech Republic. Based on the calculations I ran, even a small change of the environment where people make decisions can significantly improve the results of the intervention, all that with minimal costs. It is however important to point out that not all behavioral insights inspirations end with success. Application of behavioral insights into policy making has got a great potential when it comes to the Czech Republic, as I show Using two examples from Health care and taxes revenues.
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Altruism in economics: Does purely unselfish altruism exists?
Tobiášová, Magdaléna ; Stroukal, Dominik (advisor) ; Chytilová, Helena (referee)
The thesis deals with altruism and searches for the existence of its purely unselfish form in economic theory by exploring the motives of altruism and works with the hypothesis that all altruistic behavior is motivated by altruists own utility. It focuses primarily on the economic theory of altruism and the blending of neoclassical economics, which deals with the rational behavior of economic subjects with the definition of altruism as irrational behavior. To develop the phenomenon of altruism from the point of view of economic theory, it also deals with altruism in the theory of games. This alternative approach describes altruism as reciprocal behavior and accesses it through relational goods.
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Investor jako Homo Oeconomicus nebo Human; Jaké jsou zdroje odchylek od racionality na finančních trzích?
Vacha, Robert ; Chytilová, Helena (advisor) ; Prokop, Jaromír (referee)
The thesis deals with the differences among phenomena of Homo Oeconomicus and Human and their presence in the financial markets. Furthermore, it aims at revealing differences of behavior in alignment with the phenomena among groups of people involved and not involved in the financial markets. To do so we use an experiment with its assessment based on the Anchoring Index. For the purpose of the research of behavior in alignment with the Prospect theory, the thesis defines new index of assessment of human behavior the Human Index upon which it draws conclusions about the two groups. The results show no significant difference in propensity to bias and marginal difference in behavior in alignment with the prospect theory where the group involved in the financial markets reveals less Human behavior. Altogether, the findings are no remarkable difference in behavior among the two groups, i.e. both the group of people involved in the financial markets as well as those not involved are Human at very similar levels.
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Predicting Field Experiment Results in a Lab
Chadimová, Kateřina ; Cingl, Lubomír (advisor) ; Krištoufek, Ladislav (referee)
This thesis is aimed at forecasting of experimental results in a lab environment, investigating often discussed external validity of laboratory experiments. We run a novel laboratory experiment in which the subject pool is asked to make predictions on results of a certain field experiment. The collected data is ana lyzed using different accuracy measures, arriving at several interesting results. First, the forecast among the 94 subjects is quite informative about the actual treatment effects although its accuracy substantially varies based on a type of accuracy measure and a particular treatment. Second, the average forecast is either more accurate or at least comparable to the mean individual forecast, proving the presence of "wisdom-of-crowds" effect.
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