Behavioral Economists Examine Choices That Consumers Make That Are Not

question 153

Essay

Behavioral economists examine choices that consumers make that are not economically rational.Economists generally assume that people are rational; that is, they weigh the benefits and costs of an action and choose an action only if the benefits outweigh the costs.Why do consumers not act rationally when the result is that they make themselves worse off?

---

Definitions:

Measurement Error

The difference between a measured value of quantity and its true value, often due to imperfections in measurement tools or techniques.

Black, Jensen, and Scholes

Refers to scholars who contributed to the development of financial theories and models, most notably the Black-Scholes model for pricing options.

Two-Stage Regression

A statistical analysis method used when there are indirect causal relationships, involving first regressing an independent variable on an instrumenting variable, then the outcome on the fitted values from the first stage.

CAPM

The Capital Asset Pricing Model, a theory describing the relationship between systematic risk and expected return for assets, particularly stocks.