D91 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision MakingReturn

The behavioral theory of the firm assumes that firms react on performance feedback by increasing their search for alternative courses of action. However, the empirical literature is full of contradictory findings. This paper puts forward the idea that at least part of these contradictions can be explained if we can identify groups of firms behaving differently from firms in other groups and theoretical propositions. The paper uses exploratory analysis of US and German industrial firms and changes in R&D expense as their response to financial performance feedback. The cluster analysis of behavioural patterns of these firms results in identifying several behaviourally distinctive groups. The findings support the idea that contradictions in previous studies may partially stem from having a different mix of heterogeneously behaving firms. Also, they point to the proposition that for further understanding of responses to performance feedback, these groups of firms should be analysed separately.

In the context of increasing concerns about the demographic decline of Europe and the lack of sustainable policies to fight against it, the main purpose of this study is to estimate the migration intention of the Romanian students in economics and business administration and the influence of the determinant factors. Data are collected from a questionnaire survey applied to a sample of 1,155 students at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi. We have applied a multinomial logistic regression model with both simple effects and interactions. The results have brought strong arguments proving the importance of personal value recognition, beliefs and attitudes, family background, as well as interactions between genders, attitude towards competition and active search for a job or between parental severity and migration legacy, as determinant factors of the students' intention to migrate to Western Europe. These results may serve regional, national and even community-based sustainable development policies for the conservation of human resources and mostly of higher-educated individuals.

There is still a significant gender wage gap on labour markets in the majority of developed countries. The different earnings are determined mainly by the different sectors, professions and positions that men and women choose. The behavioural approach to interpretation of the labour market agents' decisions can help to explain the choice of different working career paths. The approach focuses on subjective individual preferences and their intrinsic rewards and motivations that cannot be explained by objective rational rules. The paper confirms the different relation of men and women to risk and competition and different preferences to intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and rewards. The author's existing research on Czech data is used. Women indeed preferred a lower risk, although the difference was not large (-0.7 points on a scale of 0-10), while gender does not matter for people with university education. The level of accepted risk was increased by education, career preferences, pride and partnership. On the contrary, having children and their number did not affect the level of accepted risk. As far as extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and motivations were concerned, the preference for intrinsic rewards was higher among women (44%) than men (31%). Women preferred intrinsic rewards compared to higher wages more likely than men. Women with university education preferred intrinsic rewards with the same probability as men with the same degree of education. The preference of non-monetary rewards and motivation increased with higher education.

The paper is concerned with pension reform in the Czech Republic and abroad. It argues against two opinions: on the one hand, it is not necessary to do anything, and on the other hand, that a mandatory funded system should be implemented. Both approaches are false because of creating overwhelming explicit debts. The author recommends an evolutionary approach based on decreasing PAYG in combination with voluntary savings.