In survey studies, probabilistic expectations about uncertain events are typically elicited by asking respondents for their introspective beliefs. If more complex procedures are feasible, beliefs can be elicited by incentive compatible revealed preference mechanisms (“truth serums”). Various...

Recent insights from the 'embodied cognition' perspective in cognitive science, supported by neural research, provide a basis for a 'methodological interactionism' that transcends both the methodological individualism of economics and the methodological collectivism of (some) sociology, and is...

I start this contribution with an overview of my personal involvement - as an Operations Research consultant - in several engineering case-studies that may raise ethical questions; these case studies employ simulation models. Next, I present an overview of the recent literature on ethical issues...

This paper studies the effect of incentive schemes incorporating status classes on workers' performance. I focus on performance comparisons between similarly skilled workers that belong to different status classes. A theoretical framework predicts that, under certain conditions, low ability...

In this paper we develop a formal model of economic growth and two types of social capital. Following extant literature, we model social capital as participation in two types of social networks: first, closed networks of family and friends, and, second, open networks that bridge different...

A random intersection graph is constructed by independently assigning each vertex a subset of a given set and drawing an edge between two vertices if and only if their respective subsets intersect. In this paper a model is developed in which each vertex is given a random weight, and vertices...

For various reasons the relationship between age and productivity is a matter of policy concern. I present new empirical research showing how productivity is affected by age. I study age effects at the individual level by analyzing data on running and publishing in economic journals. Furthermore...

This paper reviews recent research on the political economy of monetary policy-making, both by economists and political scientists. The traditional argument for central bank independence (CBI) is based on the desire to counter inflationary biases. However, studies in political science on the...

We investigate the determinants of the support for cannabis legalization finding a causal effect of personal experience with cannabis use. Current and past cannabis users are more in favor of legalization. We relate this to self-interest and inside information about potential dangers of cannabis...