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Behavioral Labor Economics

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  • Berg, Nathan

Abstract

Behavioral economics has in recent decades emerged as a prominent set of methodological developments that have attracted considerable attention both within and outside the economics profession. The time is therefore auspicious to assess behavioral contributions to particular subfields of economics such as labor economics. With empirical validity among its chief objectives, one might guess that behavioral economics would have made its clearest mark in data-driven subfields such as labor economics. Motivated in part by the question of why labor economics has been a relatively slow adopter of behavioral theory, this essay surveys a wide range of behavioral studies that address core labor issues. Part of the explanation is that labor economists working in the neoclassical tradition have been relatively frank in revealing shortcomings of the neoclassical theory and aggressive in empirically testing its predictions. Therefore, new work in behavioral labor economics may represent less of a methodological break than in other subfields of economics.

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  • Berg, Nathan, 2006. "Behavioral Labor Economics," MPRA Paper 26366, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:26366
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/26366/1/MPRA_paper_26366.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Stavros Drakopoulos & Ioannis Katselidis, 2014. "The Development of Trade Union Theory and Mainstream Economic Methodology," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 1133-1149, December.
    3. Dohmen, Thomas, 2014. "Behavioral labor economics: Advances and future directions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 71-85.
    4. Altman, Morris, 2014. "Insights from behavioral economics on how labor markets work," Working Paper Series 3466, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    5. Flynn, Sean Masaki & Donnelly, Michael, 2012. "Does labor contract completeness drive unionization? Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 445-454.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behavioral Economics; Bounded Rationality; Ecological Rationality; As-If; Methodology; Choice Under Uncertainty; Procedural Rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

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