Teschl
Publications
Following Nick Baigent’s argument that one must go “behind the veil of preference” (Baigent, Jpn Econ Rev 46(1):88–101, 1995) to be able to develop a satisfactory theory of rational behaviour, we propose to analyse potential intrapersonal conflicts caused by different reasons, goals or motivations to choose one option over another, which may make the development of a coherent preference impossible. We do this by presenting an extensive, but certainly not exhaustive overview of psychological research on intrapersonal conflict, its influence on preference reversal (and hence on incoherent behaviour), on psychological well-being and on motivational and behavioural changes over time. We then briefly describe our own theory of choice under conflicting motivations (Arlegi and Teschl, Working Papers of the Department of Economics DT 1208, Public University of Navarre, 2012), which is a first attempt at putting psychological insights into intrapersonal conflict into an axiomatic economic context.
Following Nick Baigent’s argument that one must go “behind the veil of preference” (Baigent, Jpn Econ Rev 46(1):88–101, 1995) to be able to develop a satisfactory theory of rational behaviour, we propose to analyse potential intrapersonal conflicts caused by different reasons, goals or motivations to choose one option over another, which may make the development of a coherent preference impossible. We do this by presenting an extensive, but certainly not exhaustive overview of psychological research on intrapersonal conflict, its influence on preference reversal (and hence on incoherent behaviour), on psychological well-being and on motivational and behavioural changes over time. We then briefly describe our own theory of choice under conflicting motivations (Arlegi and Teschl, Working Papers of the Department of Economics DT 1208, Public University of Navarre, 2012), which is a first attempt at putting psychological insights into intrapersonal conflict into an axiomatic economic context.
The interview was conducted by Constanze Binder (CB) Miriam Teschl (MT) and Yongsheng Xu (YX) via email over a period of a few weeks in the Summer/Fall of 2014.
The interview was conducted by Constanze Binder (CB) Miriam Teschl (MT) and Yongsheng Xu (YX) via email over a period of a few weeks in the Summer/Fall of 2014.
The log-normal distribution is convenient for modelling the income distribution, and it offers an analytical expression for most inequality indices that depends only on the shape parameter of the associated Lorenz curve. A decomposable inequality index can be implemented in the framework of a finite mixture of log-normal distributions so that overall inequality can be composed into within-subgroup components. Using a Bayesian approach and a Gibbs sampler, a Rao-Blackwellization can improve inference results on decomposable income inequality indices. The very nature of the economic question can provide prior information so as to distinguish between the income groups and construct an asymmetric prior density which can reduce label switching. Data from the UK Family Expenditure Survey (FES) (1979 to 1996) are used in an extended empirical application.
There are two important discussions of commitment in economic literature: one is commitment à la Elster and Schelling, which is related to self-binding choices and means that the person has the desire to restrict the future set of options. The other is commitment à la Sen, which implies a different rationality from the standard maximization rationality and means that the person can choose an option which is not necessarily best for her. In this paper, we set out to show that these two discussions of commitment are related. We do so by presenting a theory of choice under motivation conflict , followed by a discussion of the consequences that the reading of commitment through motivation conflict has on well-being.
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Against Injustice: The New Economies of Amartya Sen, edited by Reiko Gotoh and Paul Dumouchel. Cambridge University Press, 2009, x + 317 pages.
Amartya Sen, edited by Christopher Morris. Cambridge University Press, 2010, xvi + 224 pages.
Measuring Justice: primary goods and capabilities, edited by Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns. Cambridge University Press, 2010, ix + 257 pages.
In little more than a year, three new books on Amartya Sen and his ideas have been published. After all that has been written already on Sen, one may wonder if that is not too much. As to these three books - all edited volumes containing a selection of papers of well-known researchers in the respective fields - the overall answer clearly is no. Each volume has different strengths, which I will try to highlight below. However, a review of three books necessarily involves concentrating on a limited set of contributions only, and the selection reflects in part my personal interests.
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