COLOGNE BUSINESS SCHOOL (CBS)

Behavioral Economics and

Social Media

Term Paper for Advanced Media and Entertainment

Management
Winter Semester 2015
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Julia Maintz

Raghu Vinod
MA 15 in International Media and Marketing
Student-No. 1155800002

Table of Content

Abstract..............................................................................................................
Chapter 1: An Introduction To Behavioral Economics...............................1
1.1 WHAT IS BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS?..........................................................1
1.2 INDEPENDENT VARIABLES THAT INFLUENCE CONSUMPTION AND
BEHAVIOR........................................................................................................ 3
Chapter 2: Principles Of Behavioral Economics......................................... 6
PRINCIPLE 1: THE EFFECT OF EXPERIENCE.....................................................6
PRINCIPLE 2: LOSS AVERSION THROUGH REFERENCE DEPENDENCE...............6
PRINCIPLE 3: THE PROBLEM OF SELF-CONTROL AND PROCRASTINATION......7
PRINCIPLE 4: THE PRICE OF OWNERSHIP.........................................................8
PRINCIPLE 5: CONTEXT OF OUR CHARACTER.................................................8
PRINCIPLE 6: PATERNALISM IS GOOD AND BAD..............................................9
Chapter 3: Applying Behavioral Economics Theories To Social Media ..10
1. SOCIAL HERDING.......................................................................................10
2. FRAMING....................................................................................................11
3. ANCHORING................................................................................................12
4. VARIABLE SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT...............................................13
Chapter 4: Conclusion.................................................................................. 14
References...................................................................................................... 15

Abstract:
Economics traditionally works on the principle of assuming people are rational by nature and
using that economists base their theories to determine economic behavior or outcomes in a
considered scenario. Behavioral economics takes the assumption humans are rational by
nature out of the equation and uses cognitive, social and emotional influences on economic
behavior to develop theories about peoples perceptions of values and a range of biases.
Behavioral economics uses psychology to determine how humans make decisions based on a
set of metrics such as environment, personal preferences and traditional values. According to
Behavioral Economics, people are not always rational and most certainly not always arriving
at decisions after rigorous cost-benefit analysis and careful deliberation. Through this paper,
the author chooses to focus on how our thinking and decision making process can be subject
to uncertainty, feedback from our environment and our processing capability.
Given how were unconsciously influenced by our habits, feelings, physiological and
emotional states, Behavioral Economics offers an insight to researchers of Human behavior
as well as Economists in determining how our choices could be applied to various domains
such as finance, health, consumer marketing and public policies. Since our world is
interconnected through Social Media, businesses and psychologists consider Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram more prominent than ever before because these social
structures are an important determinant of economic behavior. The author hopes to provide
an outlook into
1. How Social Media is influenced by Behavioral Economics through its principles and
salient examples.
2. How economic behavior can be understood by considering and analyzing social
interactions through social media platform

Chapter 1: An introduction to Behavioral Economics

1.1 What is Behavioral Economics?
Looking at people in general and assuming they are all reasonable and logical individuals,
going about their lives in an orderly manner is shared by a range of economists, policy
makers and most of the general population. Of course this view is only somewhat correct.
Human beings are capable of extraordinary acts such as learning a multitude of languages,
recognizing thousands of faces in a crowd without getting confused, painting the Sistine
chapel and so on. But while were capable of wonderful acts, from time to time, we are also
prone to making mistakes and the cost of these mistakes are often fatal or costly.
You could take the example of driving and texting. Its repeated many times by experts and
common sense also suggests that texting and driving do not go together. One can either
simply choose to drive and not text during this activity or he/she could text first and then
choose to drive uninterrupted. So, how is this related to the discussion of behavioral
economics? Quite simply, its a useful analogy to show how we misbehave despite knowing
that such an act is inconsistent with our long term interests,
The economists assume everything over long term but the root cause of the failure of such
policies is our inability to act over long term in the exact way as predicted. The way we
approach the world is myopic and it bears a standing testament to the way we approach our
own lives. Our most basic problem is that we cannot predict the share of our problems in
modern life due to our own irrationality. Despite our repeated attempts to improve our
behavior through various self-help books and courses, we often take the make mistakes.
According to Samson (2015, p. 1), Behavioral Economics is defined as the study of
cognitive, social, and emotional influences on peoples observable economic behavior.
Other researchers such as Camerer, Loewenstein & Rabin (2004, p. 3) outlined it as
Behavioral Economics increases the explanatory powers of economics by providing it with
more realistic psychological foundations. Often times it is assumed that Behavioral
Economics is there to replace traditional economics but it should not be assumed so.
Behavioral Economics approach extends rational choice and equilibrium models; it does not
advocate abandoning these models entirely (Ho, Lim & Camerer, 2006, p. 308). Behavioral
1

economics has also been defined as "the combination of microeconomic concepts, principles,
and measures along with concepts, principles and experimental methods developed by
behavior analysts" (Bickel & Vuchinich, 2000, p. 5).
Economists often ask themselves why do consumers choose as they do? Marketers use
various means at their disposal to try and influence peoples preferences but they are often
unable to explain what people really want and why their preferences are relative, social and
contextual but not absolute. Thaler (2015, p. 25) outlines that the core premise of economic
theory is that people choose by optimizing. If you were to choose weekly grocery items,
youre bound to choose the ones that best serve your needs and desires. Thaler (2015, p. 25)
also states that the belief upon which Economists make their choices is based on human
behavior as unbiased. The premise of optimization can be witnessed in our day to day lives
through the cycles of supply and demand or choosing to spend $10 on a multitude of items
through sale in a supermarket rather than buying a single item for the same price.
The model used by economists assumes that human beings are extremely calculative and
deliberate in their choices. This is a popular misconception and the best example for this is
Financial crash of 2007-2008. Virtually no economist predicted such a financial meltdown
would be a possibility because economists based their financial models based on predictive
human behavior of resisting big changes.
In retrospect, behavioral scientist, Alex Samson, summarized Behavioral Economics into six
points (2015, p. 1):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

Small changes can have large effects.

Psychology is really important.
People cant always explain why they do what they do, or what they want.
Preference is relative, social, and contextual, not absolute.
Trust is never a given; commitment really matters.
People satisfice

1.2 Independent variables that influence consumption and behavior

As stated in the previous section by the author, Behavioral Economics differs from economics
in the sense that intrinsic factors like emotion, feelings, social background, cultural
influences, physiology, psychology are allowed in order to form theories that best explain the
irrationality in decision making. Such an approach is not a replacement of neo-economics but
2

as a
complement so as to form a framework where the key variables are consumption and decision
making.
The key independent variables that influence consumption and behavior are:
1. The delay between the behavior and the reward, which is considered in terms of the
discounting of future value of the reward (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10).
Consumers make decisions based on a trade-off between benefit and cost. Let us consider
this variable from health aspect. Individuals who choose to exercise regularly are making
a choice that includes short term costs over long term benefits while those that do not
indulge in the behavior of exercising are opting for short term benefit over long term
costs. Individuals intuitively discount the future based on their judgment as to its
attainability. They evaluate alternative options with respect to current and future cost and
benefit. When people can't see much future cost or benefit of an action, they discount
these values to a higher degree and choose based on immediate benefits and costs; those
who perceive them actually will receive future value will discount less. (Rothschild,
2001, p. 10)
2. The alternative choices available at the time of the behavior (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10).
Individuals always have the choice to exercise their will in a free society. Because human
beings rarely indulge in dealing with absolutes over their choices, we must consider
everything is relative. There exists no internal compass that directs us to choose object A
over object B. In fact, the only parameter we actively consider while choosing between
two objects are their advantages over one another.
We compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. The rationality expected of us
holds true when we compare two objects which have no relation whatsoever. If we
compare a car and a phone, depending on our needs, we will either choose the car or the
phone. However, should the two objects be the same, we relate them to one another much
like we relate our jobs to that of our colleagues or our holiday plan to someone elses
holiday plan.
In any scenario, alternative choices may or may not lead to the desired behavior and/or to
reduced externalities. (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10). Social background, emotions, feelings
3

and psychological aspects play an important role in estimating value accordingly and
determining the choices an individual can make at any given time.
3. The price of the behavior (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
In Behavioral Economics, anchoring is defined as a particular form of priming effect
whereby initial exposure to a number serves as a reference point and influences
subsequent judgments about value (Samson, 2015, p. 28). Consumers are bombarded with
prices and marketers are often trying to find the right balance between overpricing and
underpricing an article.
When we contemplate buying a house, a car, a phone or any consumer related item, we
notice the price tags and compare it with various references for benchmarking. This
behavior is called anchoring and by anchoring were setting a benchmark within which
we establish a range of prices acceptable to us.
Let us take the example of Apple - when Apple released the iPhone, they introduced it at
$600 a piece but later they reduced it to $400. By implanting the price of $600 in
consumers minds and then by reducing the price by $200, Apple was able to make
consumers think that $400 was a real bargain. Its not the $400 or $600 that is relevant in
the example of Apple. Rather, from Apples perspective, it was important to note how
consumers were willing to arrive at a decision to buy their product using simple
behavioral economics tools. By setting up a price, Apple could determine how prices
influence consumers perception of value (Ariely, 2009, para. 24).
In essence, were willing to let ourselves be subjected to manipulation and our own
response to the external stimuli has a price which ought to be considered in terms of time,
monetary expenses and health. Whether a consumer is satisfied with his/her purchase is a
personal matter but for every choice there is a price to be paid and the price could vary
from monetary value to health depending upon the item were willing to consume.
4. The income, or resources, of the individual (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
Consumption and spending are the consequents of processing and choice making. Using
scarce resources to maximize short-run benefit is rational when the future is highly
discounted in favor of the present. This discounting results from both accurate and
exaggerated assessments of the environment but is rational within the bounds of imperfect
decision-making. (Rothschild, 2001, p. 10)
4

When a product is advertised as Free, consumers perceive it as intrinsically more

valuable. A free chocolate is disproportionately more attractive relative to a chocolate
priced at $0.14 than a $0.01 chocolate is compared to one priced at $0.15. Price is often
taken as an indicator of quality, and it can even serve as a cue with physical
consequences, just like a placebo in medical studies. (Samson, 2014, p. 4)

Chapter 2: Principles of Behavioral Economics

PRINCIPLE 1: The Effect of Experience
People try to choose the best feasible option, but they sometimes dont succeed. (Laibson &
List, 2015, p. 386):
When presented with options, consumers always try to optimize their choices but they often
end up making mistakes. One of the key reasons behind failing to make a rational choice
through irrationality is experience and training; experienced decision makers tend to make
better choices than inexperienced decision-makers.
One example includes switching between restaurants. Depending on the menu and the prices
charged, we would switch to a service provider who could give us more tangible benefits for
the money spent. Likewise, consumers switch telephone plans, moving toward the best tariff
option, as they gain experience (Miravete, 2003, p. 297). These examples all illustrate that

everyone choosing optimally is a better prediction for experienced decision-makers than

for inexperienced decision-makers

PRINCIPLE 2: Loss aversion through reference dependence

People care (in part) about how their circumstances compare to reference points. (Laibson
& List, 2015, p. 387):
People favor referencing their life experiences or in general they imprint a benchmark in
order to compare their state of affairs with others around them. This also applies to
commodities. For example, if you wanted to buy a $100 furniture at Store A and found the
same furniture at Store B for $80, its only logical that most of us would opt for Store B.
Reference point here is the amount of money a consumer would be spending on the piece o
furniture. While having a reference point is important, what matters more is how people
approach their sense of loss or profit relative to this reference point. In particular, people
underweight outcomes that are merely probable in comparison with outcomes that are
obtained with certainty. This tendency, called the certainty effect, contributes to risk aversion
in choices involving sure gains and to risk seeking in choices involving sure losses. In
addition, people generally discard components that are shared by all prospects under
consideration (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, p. 263).
Because human beings are irrational and not completely rational as assumed, we give our
sense of loss more weightage than a gain. Such behavior has massive implications for market
economies and it discourages investment, causes recessions and depressions and
unemployment when firms or investors are risk averse to investing because of the phenomena
of loss aversion.

PRINCIPLE 3: The problem of self-control and procrastination.

People have self-control problems. (Laibson & List, 2015, p. 387)
Human beings crave for instant self gratification. Especially in the age of social networks, we
all have problems relating to self-control and accepting delayed gratification. Take for
example craving for sweets when youre on a diet or the tendency to spend more and save
6

less from your monthly paycheck.

But within each of these problems lies an in-built control mechanism. If students dont
possess the will to study or do their homework, they could be asked to join a group and do it
in the company of their friends. There are tools which we can utilize to help us become the
person we want to be.
From the perspective of present biased preferences, a sophisticated person does the activity
sooner than a nave person with the same preferences, irrespective of whether rewards or
costs are immediate (Donoghue & Rabin, 1999, p. 104).

PRINCIPLE 4: The Price of Ownership

Although we mostly care about our own material payoffs, we also care about the actions,
intentions, and payoffs of others, even people outside our family. (Laibson & List, 2015, p.
387):
In economics, the most important metric for any demand/sales calculation is that everything
has a price and how much is our willingness to pay for it. Each person has a threshold on how
much he/she is willing to spend and when the stakes get higher for an extremely worthy item,
we find ourselves willing to spend more. The reason this principle is so vital to marketers and
behavioral scientists is because consumers can be manipulated into buying a product based
on the product positioning.

PRINCIPLE 5: Context of our character

Sometimes market exchange makes psychological factors cease to matter, but many
psychological factors matter even in markets. (Laibson & List, 2015, pp. 387 - 388)
Behavioral biases are known to affect markets and the most prominent examples for this are
the dot-com bubble bust in 2000, followed by the US housing market collapse and the

eventual financial meltdown of 2008. In each case, investors with biases comprised the
majority of traders on wall street and outranked the rational traders by a huge margin.
Just before the US dot-com bubble burst, some technology companies had their stocks trading
on wall street at an exorbitant rate due to the actions of few irrational traders. With irrational
traders, short-sale constraints can cause some stocks to become overpriced. With short-sale
constraints, rational arbitrageurs can refrain only from buying overpriced stocks, and if there
are enough irrational traders, stocks can be overpriced (Lamont & Thaler, 2003, p. 249).
Lehmann Brothers is another prime example of how traders and company directors can
utilize behavioral economics principles to psychologically boost a market for their own
benefit.

PRINCIPLE 6: Paternalism is good and bad

In theory, limiting peoples choices could partially protect them from their behavioral
biases, but in practice, heavy-handed paternalism has a mixed track record and is often
unpopular. (Laibson & List, 2015, pp. 387 - 388)
Public policies by the Govt. are usually graded as either successful or failures depending on
the behavioral insights gathered through such policies. Some policies are successful such as
the Social Security programs in Europe or the United States whereas other examples where
Governments often over estimate the effects of their paternalistic policies are regressive tax
codes such as religion tax, soda tax or in some extreme cases alcohol prohibition in US
during the 1970s.

Chapter 3: Applying Behavioral Economics theories to Social

Media
For marketers, behavioral economics offers a tool to change the perception of their products
so the value of their package exceeds far more in terms of benefits compared to its
competitors.
Advertising on social media page has built new consumers behavior. Consumers tend to
make purchases or conduct business on social media. Given how integrated consumer
behavior is with social media, behavioral economics could analyze the cognitive and
behavioral attitudes thereby yielding important determinants of decision. (Jackson, 2009, p.
1).
Its very important from a business perspective to know your consumers. From behavioral
economics perspective, consumers and customers often make decisions that are not rational
by nature and nor do they make the best economic decisions despite the best options available
in front of them. In reality, consumers base their decisions on a sub-conscious level and in the
case of social media, this observation holds true.
In this chapter, we will discuss the principles of Behavioral Economics - Framing, Anchoring,
Social herding, Chunking, Loss Aversion and the Power of Free from a social media
perspective. The objective is to outline how these principles will help a marketer make a
meaningful connection with the customer, influence their social media behavior and generate
the right engagement be it through tweets, likes, shares or any other social media metric
like site visits, purchases and registrations.

1. Social herding
People believe something is good or bad depending on others opinions. In our society,
herding often involves people using others point of view or actions as a guide to rational
behavior, instead of investing their time in a trial and error scenario whereby they explore all
possible outcomes of their actions and they choose the best ones.
Herding can be defined as the phenomenon of individuals deciding to follow others and
imitating group behaviors rather than deciding independently and atomistically on the basis
of their own, private information. (Baddeley, 2010, p. 282).
Some of the most prominent examples of social herding from a social media perspective is
Ice Bucket Challenge. From not only sharing something over social media, people were able
to make an appointment with each other virtually by challenging each other to fulfil a task
and promote awareness of the disease - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis as well as
encouraging donations to research.
Herding can also be destructive in market contexts because blindly following market trends
in swarms can lead to huge bubbles and cause a financial meltdown. During the 2000s, the
internet dot com bubble in US drove the stock price of any companies related to internet
upwards and consequently any Information Technology firm being traded on Wall Street was
grossly overvalued. Eventually, the bubble bust and it caused substantial financial damage.

2. Framing
Choices can be worded in a way that highlights the positive or negative aspects of the same
decision, leading to changes in their relative attractiveness. Different types of framing
approaches have been identified (Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998, p. 150):
1. First one is risky choice framing. In this type of framing, the outcomes of a potential
choice involving options differing in level of risk are described in different ways.
Example for this could be - risk of losing 4 out of 10 pencils vs opportunity to save 6
out of 10 pencils.
2. Second form of framing is what we call attribute framing, in which some
characteristic of an object or event serves as the focus of the framing manipulation.
10

Example for this is having to choose between buying 1.5% fat milk or buying 3.5%
fat milk.
3. Third type of manipulation is goal framing, in which the goal of an action or behavior
is framed. Example for this could be motivating people to quit smoking in public by
offering $10 reward or imposing $5 penalty.
Through framing, it is possible to change peoples behavior for the better by simply
modifying the contextual elements.
Let us consider the below example (Kamenica, 2012, p. 3):
Weve all stood behind someone at a photocopier and wanted to push in. Obviously, some
psychology experimenters felt the same and tested different phrases for effectiveness. The
photocopier is called Xerox Machine in this example. Here are the frames:
Frame 1: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?
Frame 2: "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to
make some copies?
You can see that the second frame had extra, seemingly redundant, information. However, in
the second frame the addition of the word 'because followed by a reason forces the decision
through a different frame (at least for some people).
Result: In frame 1 about half (60% of people) said okay. In the altered version almost
everyone (93% of people) said yes.

3. Anchoring
As mentioned in Chapter 1, section 1.2, Anchoring is defined as a particular form of priming
effect whereby initial exposure to a number serves as a reference point and influences
subsequent judgments about value (Samson, 2015, p. 28). Consumers are bombarded with
prices and marketers are often trying to find the right balance between overpricing and
underpricing an article.
In order to understand Anchoring, its also important to note the following:

Expectations modify experience

What people experience to a large extent is determined by what they expect

Imagine your 11:00 am flight is cancelled and you need to be in Destination A tomorrow
morning. And when the customer care offers you two flights, one at 7:00 am next morning
11

and 9:00 pm on the same day, the customer care is creating a mental anchor through the less
desirable option, there by making the best alternative seem more acceptable. This technique
of experience engineering is an example of anchoring (Dixon & Toman, 2010)

4. Variable schedule of reinforcement

Random rewards engender those with greater loyalty and enjoyment than those that are
expected. By leveraging 95% of consumer decisions made through unconscious factors, you
can engender more loyalty through unexpected rewards rather than regular ones not only
from the recipients of such rewards but also from those who observe the event.
One such example of this fundamental principle in action was McDonalds, US which ran a
promotion Pay with Lovin in February, 2015 by randomly letting people have their meal
for free over a period of 2 weeks (Fabrizi, 2015, para. 3).

12

Chapter 4: Conclusion
The implications of Behavioral Economics are far-reaching, and its concepts can be applied
in any sphere of activity such as finance, health, marketing, public policies. Because of its
multi-disciplinary, it can be applied most notably in social media networks which will
dominate the economic paradigms in future as more and more consumers interact with each
other over these channels. There is substantial research qualitative and quantitative to
suggest incorporating social networks into economics will become increasingly necessary.

Behavioral Economics is not a replacement for traditional economics but an additional tool
which applies psychological aspects such as emotions, feelings, actual behavior to tackle
practical issues and cultivate a culture of psychological analysis in any branch of science
among governments and corporations alike. The challenges for Behavioral Economics
include influencing free will of consumers in decision making through psychological
processes as well the wider context of marketing ethics. The questions that need to be asked
are
1. How can a behavioral scientist steer consumer towards a particular direction without
affecting their sense of free will?
2. Furthermore, will people have sufficient control over their choices and be able to
arrive at a decision without conceding their self-interest in a consumer environment
Behavioral Economics is a radical new concept for marketers in which it expands their
existing marketing tool kit while allowing them to understand human behavior more
systematically. Understanding exactly how minute changes to details of an offer can
psychologically influence the way people react is crucial to optimizing core principles of
economics and consumerism at a low cost.

13

References
Ariely, D. (2009, July 1). The End of Rational Economics. Retrieved November 13, 2015,
from https://hbr.org/2009/07/the-end-of-rational-economics
Baddeley, M. (2009). Herding, social influence and economic decision-making: Sociopsychological and neuroscientific analyses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1538), 281-290.
http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0169
Bickel, W., & Vuchinich, R. (2000). Reframing health behavior change with behavioral
economics. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Camerer, C., Lowenstein, G., & Rabin, M. (2004). Advances in behavioral economics.
Princeton, New Jersey: Russell Sage Foundation
Dixon, M., & Toman, N. (2010, July 13). How Call Centers Use Behavioral Economics to
Sway Customers. Retrieved November 18, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2010/07/howcall-centers-use-behaviora
Fabrizi, M. (2015, February 5). McDonald's Behavioral Economics: Random Rewards Work
Better. Retrieved November 18, 2015, from http://adage.com/article/special-reportsuper-bowl/mcdonald-s-behavioral-economics-random-rewards-work/296969/
Ho, T., Lim, N., & Camerer, C. (n.d.). How Psychological Should Economic and Marketing
Models Be? Journal of Marketing Research,43(3), 341-344.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.43.3.341
Jackson, M. (2009). Networks and Economic Behavior. Annual Review of Economics, 1(1),
489-513. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143238
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A.. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under
Risk. Econometrica,47(2), 263291. http://doi.org/10.2307/1914185
Kamenica, E. (2012). Behavioral Economics and Psychology of Incentives. Annual Review
of Economics, 4(1), 427-452. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080511110909
Lamont, O. A., & Thaler, R. H.. (2003). Can the Market Add and Subtract? Mispricing in
Tech Stock Carveouts. Journal of Political Economy, 111(2), 227268.
http://doi.org/10.1086/367683
Laibson, David, & John A. List. 2015. Principles of Behavioral Economics. American
Economic Review, 105(5), 385-90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.p20151047
Levin, I., Schneider, S., & Gaeth, G. (1998). All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology
and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects. Organizational Behavior And Human
Decision Processes, 76(2), 149-188. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1998.2804
14

Miravete, EugenioJ. 2003. Choosing the Wrong Calling Plan? Ignorance and
Learning. American Economic Review, 93(1), 297-310. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1257/000282803321455304
O'Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M.. (1999). Doing It Now or Later. The American Economic
Review, 89(1), 103124. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/116981
Rothschild, M. (n.d.). A few behavioral economics insights for social marketers. Social
Marketing Quarterly, 7(3), 8-13. doi:10.1080/15245004.2001.9961157
Samson, A. (Ed.)(2015). The Behavioral Economics Guide 2015 (with an introduction by
Dan Ariely). Retrieved November 12, 2015 from
http://www.behavioraleconomics.com
Thaler, R. (2015). Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics. New York City, New
York: W. W. Norton & Company.

15

Affidavit

I herewith declare that the following work I have prepared is my own without the use
of materials other than those cited.

Place: Cologne, Germany

Date: 26.11.2015

Signature

16