Behavioral Biases in General Equilibrium: Implications for Wealth Inequality and Human Capital Formation
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Abstract: My research focuses on the integration of behavioral economics into well understood general equilibrium macroeconomic models populated by overlapping generations of heterogeneous agents. Specifically, I analyze the implications of populating model economies with present-biased agents who are finitely lived, subject to idiosyncratic labor income shocks, and heterogeneous in both exponential and present-biased discount factors. My primary goal is characterizing the contribution of behavioral biases towards resolving several issues in the literature pertaining to human capital investment and aggregate wealth inequality. Further, the inclusion of present bias in carefully calibrated model economies allows me to rationalize empirical differences in consumption, wealth, and education that arise between observationally similar households that models of homogeneous, exponential discounters are unable to match.
Author: Tristan Nighswander
Language: English
Topic: Economic theories and models
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2893473297