Research Brief

The majority of economists have engaged in research based on the presumption that people’s choices and behaviors are determined by their monetary incentives. In recent years, however, many behavioral economists have found that people’s choices and behaviors are influenced by reciprocity, altruistic motives, and the social norms shared by their society. Our project team aims to find appropriate social systems and institutions that enhance people’s respect for social norms and public moral behavior from a behavioral economics perspective. Our research project consists of laboratory and field economic experiments.

< Laboratory Economic Experiment >

To measure the extent of public moral behavior, we will use the amount that people are willing to pay from their own pocket to donate 50 shots of polio vaccine to help children in poor countries with the assistance of an authorized NPO, the Japan Committee, Vaccines for the World’s Children (JCV). We investigate how people’s willingness-to-pay varies by different treatments into which the market mechanism, voting rules, and delegation agreements are incorporated. In addition, for the robustness check, we will use “donation not relevant to life-threatening conditions” (e.g., books) as the index measuring the extent of moral behavior instead of “donation to prevent life-threating conditions” (e.g., polio vaccine).

 

< Field Economic Experiment >

To increase the efficiency of a community’s disaster-prevention system, it is necessary to refine the content of information about disasters and improve the quality of information transmission to community members. By doing so, how do community residents change their attitudes toward disaster defense at the individual and community levels? We will conduct a research case in Model Barangay in the Philippines. In addition, we will explore the relationship between propensity for disaster-risk aversion and attitudes toward disaster prevention using an economic experimental approach, and identify the practical knowledge about the transmission of information about disasters to enhance community cooperation.

 

Throughout these research projects, we will consider how to construct the social and economic institutions that enhance people’s respect for social norms and public moral behavior. We will then suggest appropriate policy implications to build an intellectual and mature society.