The Poor and Their Neighbors: Essays on Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Abstract

This thesis comprises of seven self-contained papers. While the papers are quite distinct in the questions they address and each is based on its own dataset, there are some relations between them either in the topic covered, theories applied or empirical methods used. Generally put, the first five papers focus on the application of behavioral and experimental economics to the livelihood and behavior of poor households in developing countries. While the sixth paper also utilizes experimental data from poor farmers, it mainly focuses on subject pool issues related to the generalization of results from laboratory experiments. The seventh paper experimentally compares the cooperative behavior of individuals and teams.All in all, the research in this thesis shows that there is much to learn from recent developments in behavioral and experimental economics regarding important issues in developing countries, such as natural resource management and technology adoption. The livelihood of many people in developing countries is intertwined with each other and their environment. New insights from behavioral economics are becoming increasingly useful in understanding the complexities in such systems, and developing tools that promote technology adoption and enhance cooperation in the management of important resources like land and forests. Experimental economics is complementing these efforts by opening for new and reasonably cheap possibilities of evaluating policies and interventions. This thesis aspires to contribute to these exciting developments in the field of economics.