Behavioral Economics

December 29, 2015

How a Soap Opera Affected Brazil’s Fertility Rate

During the past 40 years, Brazil's fertility rates declined. One cause was the new values that soap operas conveyed to an uneducated rural population.

December 13, 2015

What We Are Willing to Do For Money

Monetary incentives can influence a decision and distort the information we access for our cost and benefit research.

December 8, 2015

Where Toilets “Take a Village”

Shown by a project in rural India, building a sanitation network that includes toilets can eliminate open defecation and the disease it creates.

December 7, 2015

Debating the Size of the Social Safety Net

If Finland replaces benefits with a monthly check, the tradeoffs for its safety net programs will be domestic and international.

November 30, 2015

Marriage Markets in China and India

With son preference, limited fertility and social norms, China's and India's sex ratios at birth have created a male glut and new marriage markets.

November 19, 2015

The Cost of Garbage

With landfills, recycling and composting the alternatives, garbage incineration that generates electricity has become increasingly popular.

November 18, 2015

Why Shades of Gray Might Lead to Better Research

Through his Reproducibility Project, Brian Nosek shows that scientific accuracy can be assessed through replication of results and prediction markets.

November 16, 2015

Why Women Don’t Get the Credit They Deserve

Expectations bias is among the top gender issues for female economists because we are predisposed to think of a male when looking at academic research.