This project will focus on identifying fundamental attributes of economic decision making, a set of measurements that the researchers call "econographics. The project also will focus on measuring econographics in countries throughout the world and within the U.S. over time, and as well as examining how these attributes relate to popular attitudes and participation in governmental processes. The researchers will conduct an incentivized survey that will measure econographics across thirteen countries, and over three times within the U.S. The countries selected to survey include many different types of governmental and economic environments, including parliamentary democracies with high redistribution, federal systems with a large informal economies, transitional democracies, developing democracies and authoritarian states. These states also have a variety of economic systems. Through their measurement of econographics across a broad spectrum of countries, the researchers will test hypotheses related to the processes through which these fundamental attributes correspond with the political environment and with economic performance. The three survey waves within the U.S. will straddle a national election to examine how major national events, which are known to change popular attitudes, affect econographics.
This project will provide new metrics to assess fundamentals of economic culture and decision making, and it will facilitate new modes of research to link behavioral economics with other social and behavioral science fields. The project will provide new insights related to the conduct of large-scale, cross-country, incentivized surveys, thereby facilitating future research based on empirical tests on representative samples of the population rather than on subjects in a social science laboratory. The project will provide valuable education and training opportunities for post-doctoral researchers and graduate students, and project results will provide valuable information and insights to assist policy makers and others in determining the most effective ways to attain socially desirable goals. This project is supported through the NSF Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (IBSS) competition.
