Behavioral economy

The behavioral economy is a field of the economic scene which studies the Comportement human beings in the economic situations. One of the main objectives of the behavioral economy is in particular to describe and explain why, in certain situations, the human beings adopt a behavior which can seem paradoxical or not rational, i.e. contrary so that the theory of the Homo œconomicus would predict. This current of research is thus pressed much on the laboratory experiment (experimental economy) or the collection of real data and is thus with the interface with the Psychologie.

The experimental economy is a discipline which developed much since the end of the 20th century, Daniel Kahneman received besides, in 2002, the “Nobel Prize” of economy for its work pioneers in this field. Another field in the field of the economic scenes, the behavioral Finance is the more particular study of the behaviors in situation of Financial market and thus insists more on their collective dimension.

Conceptual bases

Some, because of the Semantic vicinity between behavioral economics , the name brought by the American researchers, and behaviorism , consider that this field is inspired primarily by psychology behaviorist or behaviorist. However, unlike this one, the behavioral economy is not limited to a simple study of the symptoms (economic effects in fact) and couple stimulus - reaction, even if the phenomena of under-reaction/surréaction, studied in particular by Richard Thaler, belong to this discipline of economic analysis. It calls also upon many other concepts, as well of the individual psychology as of the social Psychologie, in particular all that milked with the cognitive Biais S and emotional, that they is individual or results from effects of group (Conformisme…).

Methods used and noted phenomena

The behavioral economy studies these phenomena as well by field studies and the analysis of statistical series, as by methods close to those of the experimental economy, which consists in simulating in laboratory the individual economic behaviors by the means of the plays.

The projections of the Neuroéconomie contribute to this research. Also let us note that a good part of research of the behavioral economy and phenomena noted are common with those of the behavioral Finance, so much so that the two disciplines are often gathered. The observations relate in particular to the fact that economic decision making is impacted by psychological factors, as well cognitive as emotional, which deviate partly from the rationality allotted to the Homo œconomicus.

To note finally, and the question is common to the whole of the branches of the experimental economy, which it is delicate to extrapolate the individual behaviors or of small groups to the whole of the economy. The more so as, within a crowd or of a mass the individual tends to modify his behavior.

Of this fact the study of the behaviors of the populations, or at least of the segments of population (standard of economic agents) is also necessary. That concerns techniques of the Sociologie, at the same time in the form of investigations and of statistical inférences. These studies, of course, can with difficulty give place to experiments with large scales on the ground, which would pose the ethical problem of collective handling.

See too

Internal bonds

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