Pleasant touch is thought to increase the release of oxytocin. Oxytocin, in turn, has been extensively studied with regards to its effects on trust and prosocial behavior, but results remain inconsistent. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of touch on economic decision making. Participants (n = 120) were stroked on their left arm using a soft brush (touch condition) or not ...

Studies from behavioral economics show that the subjective prospect value of money has diminishing sensitivity to losses/gains, represented by an S-shape, and this been applied in representing time many transportation studies such as travel behavior modeling network equilibrium. In study, we demonstrate increasing losses/gains can be ?-shape, which contrasts money. We further explain rationalit...

This article investigates the properties, good and bad, of social evaluations based on four money measures of well-being or changes in well-being: compensating variations, money metrics, extended money metrics, and welfare ratios. Consistency of social rankings (transitivity, asymmetry of preference), the possibility of incorporating inequality aversion, independence of the choice of reference ...

There is a nuanced interplay between the provision of monetary incentives and behavioral performance. Individuals' performance typically increases with increasing incentives only up to a point, after which larger incentives may result in decreases in performance, a phenomenon known as "choking." We investigated the influence of incentive framing on choking effects in humans: in one condition, p...

This paper analyzes the existence of an inflation tax Laffer curve (ITLC) in the context of two standard optimizing monetary models: a cash-in-advance model and a money in the utility function model. Agents’ preferences are characterized in the two models by a constant relative risk aversion utility function. Explosive hyperinflation rules out the presence of an ITLC. In the context of a cash-i...

Systematic asymmetries in exchange behavior have been widely interpreted as support for endowment e ect theory, that loss aversion associated with ownership creates an asymmetry in valuations and exchange behavior. According to this theory, which is an application of prospect theory, parting with an endowed object produces a loss that is greater than the gain from acquiring another object of ot...