In one episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper let dice to make decisions for him. A similar experiment was conducted by Steven Levitt. However, instead of studying decisions that affected him and his life, he investigated the decision process of people in a field experiment. In particular, he collected data about more than… Read More »
Have you ever found yourself wondering whether economists and their theories are any good to society? Nobel Laureate Alvin Elliot Roth and several of his colleagues were particularly successful as they made one of the most unquestionable contributions to the real world. As a part of their aim to fix some of the market failures,… Read More »
In their research, Cramer and Krueger managed to compile a unique dataset on the utilization of taxi and UberX drivers in 5 cities in the U.S. From the comparison they conducted, it seems that UberX driver are able to operate with higher efficiency (with an exception for New York City, where both taxi and UberX drivers… Read More »
Is it easier to have a great career for children of rich parents than for their peers with poorer parents? How does the parents’ income affect their offspring’s income? Or more generally, does income inequality enhance or prevent intergenerational mobility? Without drawing any causal conclusion, Corak examined the so called Great Gatsby Curve – a… Read More »
Measuring and comparing the generosity of social programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, sickness benefits) across countries is not an easy task. There are several aspects which affect the actual level of generosity: eligibility, duration, waiting period, a level of the payment itself etc. Moreover, to be precise, when comparing different countries, one would need to account… Read More »
Heyman and Ariely conducted three experiments verifying several hypotheses about the relationship between the effort one makes and rewards paid back in return. In particular, they distinguished between behavior on two different markets: (i) social market (market with no money), and (ii) monetary market; arguing that once we introduce money, people abound their willingness to… Read More »