IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/pepspp/v22y2016i2p105-129n2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Surviving the Storm: Behavioural Economics in the Conflict Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Savage David A.

    (Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia)

Abstract

While behavioural economics has become part of mainstream economic theory, showing systematic deviations from the standard homo economicius in normal environments, there has been little exploration of behaviour in the extreme – such as conflict, disasters or war zones. This has led to the underdevelopment of behavioural theory examining the choices or motivations of individuals within these environments, resulting in sub-optimal models and policy. This work provides an entry point for the application of behavioural economics within conflict zones, specifically the examination of decision-making of non-combatant individuals. Additionally, it provides insight into the related disaster research field, detailing current studies, overview methodological approaches, approaches and limitations. Concluding with a general discussion and potential implications for policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Savage David A., 2016. "Surviving the Storm: Behavioural Economics in the Conflict Environment," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 22(2), pages 105-129, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:pepspp:v:22:y:2016:i:2:p:105-129:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/peps-2015-0047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2015-0047
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/peps-2015-0047?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Behavior under Extreme Conditions: The Titanic Disaster," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(1), pages 209-222, Winter.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Laia Balcells, 2011. "Continuation of Politics by Two Means: Direct and Indirect Violence in Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 55(3), pages 397-422, June.
    5. Greif, Avner, 1998. "Historical and Comparative Institutional Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 80-84, May.
    6. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1281-1292, September.
    8. repec:feb:artefa:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Rosenblum Michael A & van der Laan Mark J., 2009. "Confidence Intervals for the Population Mean Tailored to Small Sample Sizes, with Applications to Survey Sampling," The International Journal of Biostatistics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-46, January.
    10. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    11. Herbert A. Simon, 1991. "Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 125-134, February.
    12. Laia Balcells, 2008. "Rivalry and Revenge: Making Sense of Violence against Civilians in Conventional Civil Wars," HiCN Working Papers 51, Households in Conflict Network.
    13. Levitt, Steven D. & List, John A., 2009. "Field experiments in economics: The past, the present, and the future," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-18, January.
    14. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    15. List, John A. & Cherry, Todd L., 2008. "Examining the role of fairness in high stakes allocation decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-8, January.
    16. Beraldo, Sergio & Caruso, Raul & Turati, Gilberto, 2013. "Life is now! Time preferences and crime: Aggregate evidence from the Italian regions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 73-81.
    17. Bruno S. Frey & David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2011. "Who perished on the Titanic? The importance of social norms," Rationality and Society, , vol. 23(1), pages 35-49, February.
    18. Chan, Ho Fai & Frey, Bruno S. & Gallus, Jana & Torgler, Benno, 2014. "Academic honors and performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 188-204.
    19. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2002. "Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1167-1201, December.
    20. Daniel Kahneman, 2003. "Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1449-1475, December.
    21. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2005. "Identity and the Economics of Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 9-32, Winter.
    22. Robert H. Bates & Avner Greif & Margaret Levi & Jean-Laurent, 1998. "Analytic Narratives," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 6355.
    23. Douglas D. Heckathorn, 1989. "Collective Action and the Second-Order Free-Rider Problem," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 78-100, July.
    24. Kunreuther, Howard, 1996. "Mitigating Disaster Losses through Insurance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 12(2-3), pages 171-187, May.
    25. James E. Smith & Ralph L. Keeney, 2005. "Your Money or Your Life: A Prescriptive Model for Health, Safety, and Consumption Decisions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(9), pages 1309-1325, September.
    26. Albala-Bertrand, J. M., 1993. "Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters: With Special Reference to Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198287650, Decembrie.
    27. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    28. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    29. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:5:p:669-678 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Page, Lionel & Savage, David A. & Torgler, Benno, 2014. "Variation in risk seeking behaviour following large losses: A natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 121-131.
    31. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios (ed.), 2012. "The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195392777, Decembrie.
    32. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.
    33. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    34. David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2015. "The Times They Are A Changin’: The Effect of Institutional Change on Cooperative Behaviour at 26,000 ft over Sixty Years," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-52515-4.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raul Caruso & Marco Di Domizio & David A. Savage, 2017. "Differences in National Identity, Violence and Conflict in International Sport Tournaments: Hic Sunt Leones!," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 511-545, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    2. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    3. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality within Three Dimensions," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, volume 36, pages 119-155, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    4. repec:qut:qubewp:wp014 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    6. Dorian Jullien, 2016. "Under Uncertainty, Over Time and Regarding Other People: Rationality in 3D," GREDEG Working Papers 2016-20, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    7. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen Bergh, 2011. "Environmental Policy Theory Given Bounded Rationality and Other-regarding Preferences," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 263-304, June.
    8. Häckel, Björn & Pfosser, Stefan & Tränkler, Timm, 2017. "Explaining the energy efficiency gap - Expected Utility Theory versus Cumulative Prospect Theory," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 414-426.
    9. Stephen L. Cheung, 2020. "Eliciting utility curvature in time preference," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 493-525, June.
    10. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    11. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    13. Julia Ihli, Hanna & Chiputwa, Brian & Winter, Etti & Gassner, Anja, 2022. "Risk and time preferences for participating in forest landscape restoration: The case of coffee farmers in Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    14. Aurélien Baillon & Owen O'Donnell & Stella Quimbo & Kim van Wilgenburg, 2022. "Do time preferences explain low health insurance take‐up?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(4), pages 951-983, December.
    15. Stefano DellaVigna & Devin Pope, 2018. "What Motivates Effort? Evidence and Expert Forecasts," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 1029-1069.
    16. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    17. Teck H. Ho & Noah Lim & Colin Camerer, 2005. "Modeling the Psychology of Consumer and Firm Behavior with Behavioral Economics," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000476, UCLA Department of Economics.
    18. Mark Schneider, 2016. "Dual Process Utility Theory: A Model of Decisions Under Risk and Over Time," Working Papers 16-23, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    19. Döring Thomas, 2013. "John Maynard Keynes als Verhaltensökonom – illustriert anhand seiner Analyse des Versailler Vertrags / John Maynard Keynes as Behavioral Economist – Represented by his Analysis of the Treaty of Versai," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 64(1), pages 27-52, January.
    20. Floris Heukelom, 2007. "Who are the Behavioral Economists and what do they say?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-020/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    21. Sudeep Bhatia & Graham Loomes & Daniel Read, 2021. "Establishing the laws of preferential choice behavior," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 16(6), pages 1324-1369, November.
    22. Schaewitz, Johannes & Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver, 2022. "Culture and Institutions: Long-lasting effects of communism on risk and time preferences of individuals in Europe," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 785-829.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:pepspp:v:22:y:2016:i:2:p:105-129:n:2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.