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Por Qué La Economía Conductual Es Tan Popular?

1) Behavioral economics has become popular due to books that promote its concepts to the general public and its emphasis on low-cost "nudges" to influence behavior. 2) However, some argue that behavioral economics focuses too much on describing deviations from standard economic models rather than understanding why people behave in certain ways. 3) Failing to fully understand the reasons for behavior can limit the effectiveness of interventions and distract from more substantive policy solutions.

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Gustavo Rodriguez Herrera
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57 views4 pages

Por Qué La Economía Conductual Es Tan Popular?

1) Behavioral economics has become popular due to books that promote its concepts to the general public and its emphasis on low-cost "nudges" to influence behavior. 2) However, some argue that behavioral economics focuses too much on describing deviations from standard economic models rather than understanding why people behave in certain ways. 3) Failing to fully understand the reasons for behavior can limit the effectiveness of interventions and distract from more substantive policy solutions.

Uploaded by

Gustavo Rodriguez Herrera
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Por qué la economía conductual es

tan popular?
La reciente moda de este campo académico es en parte un triunfo del marketing.

Por David Gal


El Dr. Gal es profesor de marketing.
 6 de octubre de 2018

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Behavioral economics seems to have captured the popular imagination. Authors


like Michael Lewis write about it in best sellers like “The Undoing Project,” while
pioneers of the field like Daniel Kahneman popularize it in books like “Thinking,
Fast and Slow.” Its lexicon of “nudging,” “framing bias” and “the endowment
effect” has become part of the vernacular of business, finance and policymaking.
Even “Crazy Rich Asians,” the summer’s blockbuster romantic comedy, features an
explicit nod to “loss aversion,” a key concept in the field.

What is behavioral economics, and why has it become so popular? The field has
been described by Richard Thaler, one of its founders, as “economics done with
strong injections of good psychology.” Proponents view it as a way to make
economics more accurate by incorporating more realistic assumptions about how
humans behave.
In practice, much of behavioral economics consists in using psychological insights
to influence behavior. These interventions tend to be small, often involving subtle
changes in how choices are presented: for example, whether you have to “opt in” to
a 401(k) savings plan versus having to “opt out.” In this respect, behavioral
economics can be thought of as endorsing the outsize benefits of psychological
“tricks,” rather than as calling for more fundamental behavioral or policy change.

The popularity of such low-cost psychological interventions, or “nudges,” under the


label of behavioral economics is in part a triumph of marketing. It reflects the
widespread perception that behavioral economics combines the cleverness and fun
of pop psychology with the rigor and relevance of economics.
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Yet this triumph has come at a cost. In order to appeal to other economists,
behavioral economists are too often concerned with describing how human
behavior deviates from the assumptions of standard economic models, rather than
with understanding why people behave the way they do.

Consider loss aversion. This is the notion that losses have a bigger psychological
impact than gains do — that losing $5, for example, feels worse than gaining $5
feels good. Behavioral economists point to loss aversion as a psychological glitch
that explains a lot of puzzling human conduct. But in an article published this year,
the psychologist Derek D. Rucker and I contend that the behaviors most commonly
attributed to loss aversion are a result of other causes.

For example, in a classic experiment, participants who were given a mug


demanded, on average, about $7 to sell it, whereas participants who were not given
a mug were willing to pay, on average, about $3 to acquire one. This finding has
been interpreted by behavioral economists as evidence for loss aversion: The loss of
the mug was anticipated to be more painful than its gain was anticipated to be
pleasurable.

But Dr. Rucker and I note that there is an alternative explanation: The participants
may not have had a clearly defined idea of what the mug was worth to them. If that
was the case, there was a range of prices for the mug ($4 to $6) that left the
participants disinclined to either buy or sell it, and therefore mug owners and non-
owners maintained the status quo out of inertia. Only a relatively high price ($7
and up) offered a meaningful incentive for an owner to bother parting with the
mug; correspondingly, only a relatively low price ($3 or below) offered a
meaningful incentive for a non-owner to bother acquiring the mug.

En nuestros propios experimentos, pudimos separar estas dos alternativas, y


encontramos que la evidencia era más consistente con la explicación de
"inercia". El Dr. Thaler ha rechazado nuestro argumento como un "punto menor
sobre la terminología", ya que los comportamientos desviados atribuidos a la
aversión a la pérdida ocurren independientemente de la causa. Pero una
explicación diferente de por qué ocurre un comportamiento no es una diferencia
terminológica menor; Es una gran diferencia explicativa. Solo si entendemos por
qué ocurre un comportamiento podemos crear conocimiento generalizable, el
objetivo de la ciencia.
ANUNCIO

The lack of sufficient attention to understanding why behavior occurs matters in


practical contexts, too. For example, advertisers influenced by the idea of loss
aversion have focused on framing their messages in terms of loss (“you will lose out
by not buying our product”) rather than in terms of gain. But such framing
techniques have been shown to be ineffective: A meta-analysis of 93 studies found
“no statistically significant differences” in the persuasive power of public-health
messages when framed in terms of loss as opposed to gain.

The effects of this kind of intervention are often small. Recent studies have found
that providing households with information on how their electricity usage
compared to that of other households — a classic “nudge” — reduced electricity
consumption by only 2 percent or less.

There is nothing wrong with achieving small victories with minor interventions.
The worry, however, is that the perceived simplicity and efficacy of such tactics will
distract decision makers from more substantive efforts — for example, reducing
electricity consumption by taxing it more heavily or investing in renewable energy
resources.

It is great that behavioral economics is receiving its due; the field has contributed
significantly to our understanding of ourselves. But in all the excitement, it’s
important to keep an eye on its limits.

David Gal is a professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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