What is meant by the term “behavioral economics”? Give three examples in which concepts from behavioral economics have been applied. In what ways did behavioral economics provide insights that standard neoclassical economics would not have provided?

This is a term paper for a behavioral economics class. The idea is to formulate an experimental design. You have to run a make believe experiment. And design an experiment. There has to be a hypothesis. A set of instructions have to be included if this make shift experiment will be conducted in a lab.

The paper is on – cheating. Using cheating as a condition you are testing to see if students in a classroom setting giving their SAT’s cheat while instructor/proctor is not looking. There are TWO controls in this experiment. One being, the use of public cameras and second being hidden cameras. In one room 50 kids are told that they are being watched by public cameras and in the other room 50 kids are NOT told that they are being watched by a hidden watched.

Run an experiment to see in which of the two classes, kids perform better on their SAT scores? Meaning, which class scored higher on their SAT. The one who cheated (were not told about the hidden camera) OR the ones who did not cheat because they were told of the public camera?

This is NOT a results paper. It is an experimental paper on designing an experiment.
You MUST NOT replicate another author’s study or paper. This CANNOT be a mere summary of a paper that has already been done. So if during your research you find that someone has ran the exact same experiment, please stop and tweak your experiment to make it unique. The paper has to be on something that has NOT already been published.

If the above explained experiment I mentioned does NOT show up in the first 5 search options on GOOGLE SCHOLAR – go ahead and write the paper.

That being said, you HAVE to incorporate a summary of what other researchers have done in the area AND how you propose to extend what they’ve done to learn something new.

Final Project, Experimental and Behavioral Economics
The structure of you paper should be as follows:
Introduction
• Describe the main question or questions that motivate your proposed research.
• Convince me why it is important to learn answers to these questions
• Incorporate a summary of what other researchers have done in the area, and how you propose to
extend what they’ve done to learn something new.
• The best place to find academic references is probably a simple google search, and a search in
google scholar (https://scholar.google.com). Once you find an interesting reference in an
academic journal, you can access most journals through the library
(http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/index.php). Just click on “Journals” in the search box and
enter the relevant journal.
Design
• Detail the design of your experiment. Is it factorial? Something else?
• Describe your proposed treatments.
• Describe potential nuisance variables and how you plan to control them.
• How long is participation for each subject expected to take?
• Who are your subjects? Why will they make good subjects for your experiment?
• How many subjects do you expect to participate?
• Budget: How much money is this experiment expected to cost (include subject payments and
any other expenses, such as payment to software programmers, payment for materials, etc.)?
• Describe the data that will be collected. A sample, reduced data set (perhaps as a table inserted
into your paper) might be useful, but is not required.
Hypotheses – What are the specific hypotheses you can test through your design?
Analysis
• How do you propose to analyze the data?
• What graphs will make the hypothesis tests “pop”?
• What statistical models can be used to test your hypotheses?
Bibliography
• Do some research on your topic and include some of the most important related papers in your
bibliography.
• Make sure you include these references in your introduction.
I don’t have length or formatting requirements. Make sure it’s well-organized and well-written.
Everything you write should be essential, I will penalize excessive “filler.” That is, a 20-page project
will get a higher grade than a 30-page project that includes the exact same 20 pages of the other project,
and 10 extra pages of filler.
If it helps, my best guess for reasonable page lengths (12 pt, single-spaced) is 4-5 pages for the intro, 9-
10 pages for design, 1 page for hypotheses, 5 pages for analysis, and 1 page for the bibliography. So I
think 20 pages is a reasonable target, but again, shorter or (a little) longer is fine, just make sure
everything you write is meaningful for the study.

This is a term paper for a behavioral economics class. The idea is to formulate an experimental design. You have to run a make believe experiment. And design an experiment. There has to be a hypothesis. A set of instructions have to be included if this make shift experiment will be conducted in a lab.

The paper is on – cheating. Using cheating as a condition you are testing to see if students in a classroom setting giving their SAT’s cheat while instructor/proctor is not looking. There are TWO controls in this experiment. One being, the use of public cameras and second being hidden cameras. In one room 50 kids are told that they are being watched by public cameras and in the other room 50 kids are NOT told that they are being watched by a hidden watched.

Run an experiment to see in which of the two classes, kids perform better on their SAT scores? Meaning, which class scored higher on their SAT. The one who cheated (were not told about the hidden camera) OR the ones who did not cheat because they were told of the public camera?

This is NOT a results paper. It is an experimental paper on designing an experiment.
You MUST NOT replicate another author’s study or paper. This CANNOT be a mere summary of a paper that has already been done. So if during your research you find that someone has ran the exact same experiment, please stop and tweak your experiment to make it unique. The paper has to be on something that has NOT already been published.

If the above explained experiment I mentioned does NOT show up in the first 5 search options on GOOGLE SCHOLAR – go ahead and write the paper.

That being said, you HAVE to incorporate a summary of what other researchers have done in the area AND how you propose to extend what they’ve done to learn something new.

Final Project, Experimental and Behavioral Economics
The structure of you paper should be as follows:
Introduction
• Describe the main question or questions that motivate your proposed research.
• Convince me why it is important to learn answers to these questions
• Incorporate a summary of what other researchers have done in the area, and how you propose to
extend what they’ve done to learn something new.
• The best place to find academic references is probably a simple google search, and a search in
google scholar (https://scholar.google.com). Once you find an interesting reference in an
academic journal, you can access most journals through the library
(http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/index.php). Just click on “Journals” in the search box and
enter the relevant journal.
Design
• Detail the design of your experiment. Is it factorial? Something else?
• Describe your proposed treatments.
• Describe potential nuisance variables and how you plan to control them.
• How long is participation for each subject expected to take?
• Who are your subjects? Why will they make good subjects for your experiment?
• How many subjects do you expect to participate?
• Budget: How much money is this experiment expected to cost (include subject payments and
any other expenses, such as payment to software programmers, payment for materials, etc.)?
• Describe the data that will be collected. A sample, reduced data set (perhaps as a table inserted
into your paper) might be useful, but is not required.
Hypotheses – What are the specific hypotheses you can test through your design?
Analysis
• How do you propose to analyze the data?
• What graphs will make the hypothesis tests “pop”?
• What statistical models can be used to test your hypotheses?
Bibliography
• Do some research on your topic and include some of the most important related papers in your
bibliography.
• Make sure you include these references in your introduction.
I don’t have length or formatting requirements. Make sure it’s well-organized and well-written.
Everything you write should be essential, I will penalize excessive “filler.” That is, a 20-page project
will get a higher grade than a 30-page project that includes the exact same 20 pages of the other project,
and 10 extra pages of filler.
If it helps, my best guess for reasonable page lengths (12 pt, single-spaced) is 4-5 pages for the intro, 9-
10 pages for design, 1 page for hypotheses, 5 pages for analysis, and 1 page for the bibliography. So I
think 20 pages is a reasonable target, but again, shorter or (a little) longer is fine, just make sure
everything you write is meaningful for the study.