Cornell / LSE / MIT Conference

Behavioral Economics, Public Economics and Development Economics

May 28^th and 29^th, 2004

Organisers: Ravi Kanbur, Sendhil Mullainathan, Tim Besley
Conference Administrator: Kate Perry (k.perry@lse.ac.uk)
Location: Michio Morishima Room (R505)
LSE Research Laboratory
Lionel Robbins Building
entrance in 10 Portugal Street
London WC2.

Summary of the Conference [download pdf]

Participants arrive May 27

Friday 28^th of May

8.30 - 9.00 am	Registration and Welcome
9.00 - 9.30 am	Session I: Opening Timothy Besley, Ravi Kanbur, Sendhil Mullainathan
9.30 - 10.45 am	Session II: Behavioral Economics (1) Glenn Loury "A theory of identity." [click here to download the paper] Abhijit Banerjee and Sendhil Mullainathan "Motivation and poverty."
10.45 - 11.15 am	Coffee break
11.15 - 12.30 am	Session III: Public Economics (1) Christian Zehnder [co-authors Armin Falk and Ernst Fehr] "The behavioral effects of minimum wages." [click here to download the paper] Erica Field "Educational debt burden and career choice: evidence from a financial aid experiment at NYU Law School." [click here to download the paper]
12.30 - 2.00 pm	Lunch
2.00 - 3.45 pm	Session IV: Development Economics (1) Caroline Freund and Caglar Ozden "Lobbying for protection: A behavioral approach." [click here to download the paper] Marcel Fafchamps and Forhad Shilpi "Subjective wellbeing and isolation." [click here to download the paper] Raji Jayaraman "Deconstructing domestic violence."
3.45 - 4.15 pm	Coffee break
4.15 - 5.30 pm	Session V: Public Economics (2) Matti Tuomala, Ravi Kanbur and Jukka Pirttila "Moral hazard, income taxation and prospect theory." [click here to download the paper] Tom Russell, Howard Kunreuther and Mark Pauly "Public/private partnerships for catastrophic insurance: some behavioral issues." [click here to download the paper]

Saturday 29^th of May

9.00 - 10.45 am	Session VI: Public Economics (3) Lorne Carmichael and Bentley Macleod "Welfare Economics with Intransitive Revealed Preferences: A Theory of the Endowment Effect." [click here to download the paper] Ed McCaffery and Jonathan Baron "Uncovered hidden taxes and indirect effects." [click here to download the paper] Ted O'Donoghue and Matthew Rabin "Optimal sin taxes." [click here to download the paper]
10.45 - 11.15 am	Coffee break
11.15 - 12.30 am	Session VII: Development Economics (2) Karla Hoff and Priyanka Pandey "Why are social inequalities so durable? An experimental test of the effects of Indian caste on performance." [click here to download the paper] Dean Karlan "Using experimental economics to measure social capital and predict financial decisions." [click here to download the paper]
12.30 - 2.00 pm	Lunch
2.00 - 3.15 pm	Session VIII: Development Economics (3) Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer "Understanding technology adoption: Fertilizer in Western Kenya-preliminary results from field experiments." [click here to download the paper] [click here to download tables] Ted Miguel and Michael Kremer "Networks, social learning and technology adoption: the case of deworming in Kenya." [click here to download the paper]
3.15 - 3.45 pm	Coffee break
3.45 - 4.25 pm	Session IX: Behavioral Economics (2) Luis Rayo and Gary Becker "Evolutionary Efficiency and Mean Reversion in Happiness." [click here to download the paper]
4.25 - 5.25 pm	Session X: Overview and the Way Forward Pranab Bardhan and Matthew Rabin