2. The Rational Man Flashcards
What is the causal relationship of rationality?
people respond to incentives –> change in behavior
Give one example where rats respond to incentives.
Learn that they could earn drinks by pressing on the levers, and familiarised themselves with how much each lever produced.
Experimenters set “prices” by adjusting the machine to dispense less/more drink per press of the lever; set “income” by limiting the total number of lever presses in each session. Root beer is delicious but expensive, so rats compromise, slaking their thirst on nasty quinine solution but also enjoying some root beer. They don’t press the lever at random. Drink more quinine even when it gets more expensive, as long as the servings are still larger than those of the root beer. Rats respond to budget as well as price.
What is a “giffen good”?
A Giffen good is a good like the quinine water, one that is such a wretched necessity for the poor that when the price rises, demand rises, because the price rise creates more poverty and the poverty creates more demand.
Why are young people now having more oral sex?
Increased cost of regular sex.
Weigh the costs and benefits of oral sex against alternatives like regular sex.
Regular sex is more costly than it used to be because of the spread of HIV/AIDS. HIV is much more likely to be spread by regular sex than oral sex. So people turn to alternatives like oral sex because the costs of oral sex are lower than the costs of regular sex.
This is a sign that teenagers are behaving more responsibly by rationally-choosing an alternative to riskier sex.
How do you explain the fall in STDs when abortion notification laws are passed?
Abortion notification law significantly raises the risk/cost of unprotected sex because parents have to be informed for an abortion, and that the teenagers rationally respond to that risk/cost by reducing that behavior. Reducing unprotected sex naturally results in fall in STDs.
How is knowledge and experience with people with AIDS related to sexuality?
Rise of AlDS has made it more risky to have sex with men. Makes it more dangerous for men to be homosexual, and for women to be heterosexual. When cost of one’s sexual orientation is perceived to have gone up, we expect rational people to respond to that. Men who had a relative with AlDS were less likely to find the idea of sex with men appealing. Women who had a relative with AlDS also seemed to be turned off by the idea of sex with men: They were more likely to say they were homosexual or bisexual. Both men and women with an acute awareness of the risks of AlDS were shifting away from an obvious way of catching it. Experience of AIDS had inspired safer sex practices
Do murderers respond to the death penalty?
Yes, even though most murders are considered an act of passion and irrationality, most econometric research reveals a substantial deterrent effect of capital punishment. Murderers respond to incentives! Even in the moment of rage, it still matters what the murderer perceives his chances of escaping are. Suggests that people respond significantly to incentives even in situations where we don’t usually imagine their behaviors to be calculated or rational. Response to incentives may be as INNATE as any other instinctive behavior.
What is rationality specifically?
Refers to how people rank order their preferences and then choose the most desirable feasible choice. Though mistakes can be made, but rationality is still a better theory than arationality or irrationality because people are rational most of the time.
What is the difference between irrationality and arationality?
Arationality – people making choices randomly
Irrationality – people choosing the opposite of what they desire
What are the 2 important assumptions of rationality?
1) Assume that people’s preferences are COMPLETE
Any basket of goods can be compared as to its desirability to another bundle
2) Assume that people’s preferences are TRANSITIVE
If people prefer basket A to basket B, and basket B to basket C, then they prefer basket A to C.
What is the concept of utility?
The happiness a consumer derives out of the consumption of a given quantity of a good
Draw and describe the utility function.
Law of diminishing marginal returns (LDMR)
Captures the relationship between utility and quantity of good consumed. Typically people’s’ preferences are assumed to display diminishing marginal utility
Means that the first unit of a good makes me very happy but each extra unit makes me happier but at a decreasing rate.
In what cases will the utility function not apply?
Addicts – gamblers, drugs etc.
Hobbies
People enjoy increasing or same rates of increase of happiness the more they consume the good.
Draw and describe the indifference curve.
The indifference curve shows our consumption preferences if we have to choose between 2 goods. They show consumption combinations where the consumer is indifferent. Along the same indifference curve, any consumption bundle makes us equally happy. Indifference curves are personal and depends on individual’s preference and value of each good against the other good. It is infinite.
What happens if we move from a lower indifference curve to a higher indifference curve?
Our utility (happiness) increases.
What are the 4 main qualifications of rationality?
1) Rationality does not always mean that people’s preferences are necessarily selfish
2) It does not mean that people do explicit calculations every time they need to make decision.
3) People are not assumed to have perfect self-control, we sometimes make irrational decisions we regret. Limits in willpower.
4) People make mistakes and have biases. There are clear limits to our abilities to calculate, think ahead, and see our way through certain cognitive traps.
Elaborate why rationality does not always mean behaving selfishly.
Rational behaviors can be altruistic or even self-destructive. People are motivated by all kinds of normal human emotions. These motivations may not be financial, and not always selfish, but our responses to them are rational. We still plan, calculate, and strategise according to our emotions.
Elaborate why rationality does not always mean people do explicit calculations every time they make a decision.
Many rational decisions are made unconsciously but still can fit the rational model. Evolutionary pressure has tended to produce organisms that often behave in rational ways, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Give an argument why rationality is a good enough theory to understand the world.
People are less likely to make mistakes when doing something familiar and experienced in. Since we all do familiar things more often than unfamiliar things, mistakes are less likely to occur. This favours rational choice theory as a tool for understanding the world. It is not a perfect theory but it is good enough.
What happens when observed behavior doesn’t comply with predictions of rationality?
Whenever behaviour does not comply with predictions, economists don’t give up but dig deeper, trying to reconcile the two. (ie. try to explain seemingly irrational decisions with rationality)
Seat belts tend to reduce the number of driver deaths by making it easier to survive an accident. But it also increases the number of driver deaths by encouraging reckless behaviour. Which is the net effect of the two opposing predictions?
They cancel each other out. Specifically, we observe more accidents, but fewer deaths per accident. The net total of deaths remain the same.
Describe one example to show that incentives can work differently on different people.
Incentives can depend on cultural factors.
Eg. NYC diplomats and parking violations
UN diplomats could park wherever they wanted and ignore any legal penalties.
Norway, Sweden, Canada, UK, Japan → no unpaid parking tickets
Kuwait, Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Angola, Pakistan etc. → worst violators
They all faced the same immediate incentives but results were very different. Worst violators came from diplomats from countries without a culture of meritocracy. The poorer the country, the more likely their diplomats have received special treatment all their lives, and they expect those privileges to continue. Corruption breeds subsequent irresponsibility. Swedes are more likely to regard governments as morally legitimate. So they are more likely to obey laws and take greater care to cultivate their reputations as law-abiding citizens.
What does the example on NYC diplomats and parking violations demonstrate?
Demonstrates that the workings of incentives depends on how a person perceives what is at stake in the choice. Understanding the social context is very important!
Give an example of how non-monetary incentives can work better than monetary incentives.
Blood donation – When people are given a small stipend for donating blood rather than simply being praised for their altruism, they tend to donate less blood. The stipend turned a noble act of charity into a painful way to make a few dollars, and it wasn’t worth it.
