A major finding from research into the sources of subjective well-being is that individuals exhibit a “baseline” level of happiness. We explore the influence of genetic variation by employing a twin design and genetic association study. We first show that about 33% of the variation in happiness is explained by genes. Next, using two independent data sources, we present evidence that individuals...

A Vague Theory of Choice over Time We propose a novel approach to modelling time preferences, based on a cognitive shortcoming of human decision makers: the perception of future events becomes increasingly ‘blurred’ as the events are pushed further in time. We axiomatise a class of preference representations which can be specialised to rationalise ‘anomalies’ such as preference reversals and cy...

This paper studies children’s behavior in a prisoner’s dilemma game. I attempted to teach children cooperation by means of a short moral lecture. Over the period of 12 months, I experimented with 196 children between the ages of six and eleven. The experimental findings are as follows. (1) In support of the developmental psychology theories, the proportions of cooperation are indeed higher for ...

In this study I present experimental evidence of a novel channel yielding inequality persistence. In an initial experiment, results suggest that individuals respond to salient inequality by adjusting their performance beliefs to justify the inequality. Subsequent experiments reveal: i) that it is beliefs about relative ability—an ostensibly stable trait— rather than effort provision that respon...

Economists typically object to preference-based explanations of human behavior; differences in preferences “explain everything and therefore nothing”. But this argument is only correct assuming that no empirical evidence exists to discipline preference-based explanations. In fact, over the past decade, personality psychologists have produced a robust collection of stylized facts about human pre...

Melanoma-associated antigen family A (MAGE-A) is a family of cancer/testis antigens that are expressed in malignant tumors but not in normal tissues other than the testes. MAGE-A12 is a MAGE-A family gene whose tumorigenic function in cancer cells remains unclear. Searches of the Oncomine and NextBio databases revealed that malignant tumors show up-regulation of MAGE-A12 mRNA relative to corres...

This short paper discusses majority and minority views in economics regarding the value of neuroscience for economics – and thus the value of the neuroeconomics research program. It argues that neuroeconomics’ reception ultimately depends on whether economists adopt a philosophy of science thinking closer to what exists in other sciences. It then argues that an inadvertent a product of this deb...

People exhibit peer-induced fairness concerns when they look to their peers as a reference to evaluate their endowments. We analyze two independent ultimatum games played sequentially by a leader and two followers. With peer-induced fairness, the second follower is averse to receiving less than the first follower. Using laboratory experimental data, we estimate that peer-induced fairness betwee...

This paper suggests a mechanism that describes individuals’ positive self-image in subjective assessments of their relative abilities. The mechanism assumes individuals have heterogeneous production functions that determine ability as a function of multiple skills; make skill-enhancing investments with the goal of maximizing their ability; and make ability comparisons using their own production...

Our research is a variant of the third party punishment game that we call Solomon’s Game. The main feature of this game is that players can not only punish unfair people but also help those individuals who are the victims of that unfairness. The aim of this experiment is to compare the human tendency to punish unfair behavior to the desire to help victims of that unfairness, in presence of a bu...