Abstracts Economics

Συμπεριφορικά οικονομικά και συνταξιοδοτικά συστήματα: εμπειρική διερεύνηση σε γηράσκουσες κοινωνίες

by Michail Chouzouris

The rapid growth of behavioral economics offers an alternative tool, relaxing the classical economic assumptions on rationality, to improve economic theory and rational choice theory. These ideas can be implemented in social economics, the insurance market and health policy. Demographic changes such as population aging as well as innovations such as globalization and new technologies are affecting the welfare state and the insurance system in different ways, and may necessitate the use of new tools such as behavioral economics.The overall objective of this dissertation is to explore decision-making mechanisms under uncertainty and their relationship with non-rational choices. This aim is achieved by the means of experimental methods and by utilizing panel data from a large -scale European survey.The first source of data is a sample of undergraduates. The study investigates whether cognitive performance is associated with behavioral anomalies. It uses the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) jointly with numeric and financial literacy tools to understand how choices not consistent with Homo Economicus - ‘the Rational Economic Man’ result. The study was conducted on a purposely biased sample of 222 numerate Greek university undergraduate students who are studying for a degree emphasizing statistics and probability. Despite the expected bias, responders with lower CRT are more likely to be susceptable to behavioral biases. As a further check, cognitive score is correlated with specific numeric and risk abilities and financial literacy.The second data set was drawn collected from SHARE, a longitudinal survey for Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. In this study we investigate the relationship between willingness to take financial risks and cognitive decline in the European region. SHARE includes data about financial risk and cognitive performance. Based on these data, we developed a measure for financial risk preference and an index for cognitive abilities based on the evaluation of episodic memory, verbal fluency and numeracy skills. Additionally, the dataset allow us to control for demographic factors and individual characteristics that may be related to cognitive skills and risk attitude. We performed linear and generalized regression models to examine the effect of cognitive skills on risk attitude controlling for the individual characteristics of the sample. Our findings demonstrate a variation in all the components of cognitive functioning across the European regions while gender differences are also significant. Finally, analysis revealed the existing correlation between risk attitude and cognitive ageing. Η ραγδαία ανάπτυξη των συμπεριφορικών οικονομικών (behavioral economics) προσφέρει ένα εναλλακτικό εργαλείο, διαφορετικό από την κλασική θεωρία, προκειμένου να βελτιώσει την οικονομική θεωρία και τη θεωρία των ορθολογικών επιλογών. Οι ιδέες αυτές έχουν πληθώρα εφαρμογών - από τομείς της κοινωνικής πολιτικής και την ασφάλιση μέχρι το μάρκετινγκ και την υγεία. Οι δημογραφικές αλλαγές όπως η γήρανση του…