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Title The Poor and Their Neighbors: Essays on Behavioral and Experimental Economics
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/2077/33889
Date 2013
Author(s) Medhin, Haileselassie
Abstract This thesis comprises of seven self-contained papers. While the papers are quite distinct;in the questions they address and each is based on its own dataset, there are;some relations between them either in the topic covered, theories applied or empirical;methods used. Generally put, the first five papers focus on the application of behavioral;and experimental economics to the livelihood and behavior of poor households;in developing countries. While the sixth paper also utilizes experimental data from;poor farmers, it mainly focuses on subject pool issues related to the generalization of;results from laboratory experiments. The seventh paper experimentally compares the;cooperative behavior of individuals and teams.All in all, the research in this thesis shows that there is much to learn from recent;developments in behavioral and experimental economics regarding important;issues in developing countries, such as natural resource management and technology;adoption. The livelihood of many people in developing countries is intertwined with;each other and their environment. New insights from behavioral economics are becoming;increasingly useful in understanding the complexities in such systems, and;developing tools that promote technology adoption and enhance cooperation in the;management of important resources like land and forests. Experimental economics is;complementing these efforts by opening for new and reasonably cheap possibilities of;evaluating policies and interventions. This thesis aspires to contribute to these exciting;developments in the field of economics.
Subject(s) Africa; argriculture; ambiguity attitudes; conditional cooperation; conflict; Ethiopia; experiment; experimentation; farmers; forward induction; free-riding; land grabbing game; land reform; positional concern; poverty; public goods; reference groups; relative income; risk attitudes; social learning; social preferences; subject pool; subjective well-being; survey experiment; team decision; technology adoption; threshold public goods; volunteer's dilemma
Language eng
Relation Economic Studies; 215; Akay, A., Martinsson, P., & Medhin, H. (2012). Does positional concern matter in poor societies? Evidence from a survey experiment in rural Ethiopia. World Development, 40(2), 428-435. ::doi::10.1016/j.worlddev.2011.06.004; Akay, A., Martinsson, P., Medhin, H., & Trautmann, S. T. (2012). Attitudes toward uncertainty among the poor: an experiment in rural Ethiopia. Theory and decision, 73(3), 453-464. ::doi::10.1007/s11238-011-9250-y
Type of publication Doctoral thesis
Identifier 978-91-85169-85-3 (tryckt); 978-91-85169-86-3 (pdf)
Repository Gothenberg - University of Gothenberg
Added to C-A: 2014-01-15;12:13:58