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Essays on Poverty and the Socio-economic Behaviour of the Poor
Želinský, Tomáš ; Chytilová, Julie (advisor) ; Gangadharan, Lata (referee) ; Servátka, Maroš (referee) ; Reggiani, Tommaso (referee)
Tomáš Želinský: Essays on poverty and the socio-economic behaviour of the poor. Doctoral thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies. 2020, 134 pages. Advisor: doc. PhDr. Julie Chytilová, Ph.D. This doctoral thesis consists of three essays that address the topic of poverty and the socio- economic behaviour of the poor. In the first essay, we focus on an economic dimension of subjective well-being, studying how closely subjective perceptions of individual economic well-being are related to objective measures of real economic conditions as they change over time. Our results suggest that people react to general economic conditions to a limited extent, and do not immediately update their perceptions according to real conditions. The following two essays primarily focus on the socio-economic behaviour of poor Roma. In the second essay, we first aim to understand the role of parents and peers in the shaping of social norms adopted by children in relatively closed, poor mono-ethnic Roma communities. We show that, on average, children's norms are more correlated with those of their peers than with those of their parents. We also show that children's norms converge to their parents' norms until the age of around twelve-thirteen, which is when many Roma children...
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Essays in Experimental Economics
Miklánek, Tomáš ; Katuščák, Peter (advisor) ; Servátka, Maroš (referee) ; Ortmann, Andreas (referee)
Essays in Experimental Economics Tomáš Miklánek Abstract The first chapter introduces a theoretical model of inequality aversion which can also be used in an environment with information asymmetries. The model is based on the non-paternalistic approach where, the own utility function incorporates the utility of other people as perceived by a decision maker. Moreover it allows extensions for other motives which may result in pro-social behavior. I extend the model by adding shame aversion as an additional driver for apparently altruistic behavior. Threat of shame is induced by different levels of exposure of either own actions or identity to the third party observers. I also experimentally test predictions of the model using a very simple environment of a dictator's game. The experimental design aims to remove additional confounding behavioral effects present in the previous literature. The results suggest that even a very small exposure results in significantly higher amounts sent to recipients. The analysis also shows that the agents, who believe that they can conceal their own actions in front of the less informed counterpart, exploit this information asymmetry for their monetary benefit. The second chapter examines endogenous decisions to acquire useful information. My experimental design tries to test...
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Essays on Decision Making under Stress
Cingl, Lubomír ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Skořepa, Michal (referee) ; Levínský, René (referee) ; Servátka, Maroš (referee)
Název / Title Eseje o rozhodování pod stresem / Essays on Decision Making under Stress Student PhDr. Lubomír Cingl Studijní program / Study program Ekonomické teorie Školitel / Advisor PhDr. Michal Bauer, Ph.D. Abstract This dissertation comprises three thematically connected experimental studies of human behavior under non- standard conditions: time-pressure and stress. In the Introduction section I present the argument for why it is important for economists to recognize stress research as a valid part of the research in economics and how it can contribute to the growing knowledge of human behavior in general, including several examples from the literature. The first paper presented in Chapter 2 examines the effect of time pressure on the individual propensity to herd, while the remaining two papers examine the effect of acute stress on risk-preferences and herding behavior, respectively. Herding behavior is a very important phenomenon in human decision making since social influence is very frequent in our lives and economic decisions: consider traders in financial markets, wait-and-see investors, but also purchase behavior due to fads, fashion and top-ten lists. Risk preferences are another essential factor which determines many important economic outcomes, and the assumption of their stability is a...
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Essays on Fairness, Inequality, and Uncertainty
Babický, Vítězslav ; Ortmann, Andreas (advisor) ; Katuščák, Peter (referee) ; Servátka, Maroš (referee)
Chapter I. Recent theories of fairness (e.g., Bolton & Ockenfels, 2000; Fehr & Schmidt, 1999) have typically used the assumption of ex ante known pie size. Here I explore theoretically the ramifications of pie size being unknown ex ante. Using a simple allocation problem known as dictator game, I find that attitude to fairness is systematically and intuitively related to risk and risk attitude. Results from informal experiments support the model proposed here. Chapter II. The relationship between risk in the environment, risk aversion and inequality aversion is not well understood. Theories of fairness have typically assumed that pie sizes are known ex-ante. Pie sizes are, however, rarely known ex ante. Using two simple allocation problems - the Dictator and Ultimatum games - we explore whether, and exactly how, unknown pie sizes with varying degrees of risk ("endowment risk") influence individual behavior. We derive theoretical predictions for these games using utility functions that capture additively separable constant relative risk aversion and inequality aversion. We experimentally test the theoretical predictions using two subject pools: students at Czech Technical University and employees of Prague City Hall. We find that: (1) Those who are more risk-averse are also more inequality-averse in...
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