Hobo Economicus*

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Leeson, Peter T.; Hardy, R. August; Suarez, Paola A.
• 署名单位: George Mason University; Seton Hall University
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab103
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 2325-2338
• 关键词: income

摘要

The central implication of maximising behaviour amid competition is that rates of return tend toward equality. We test that implication in a market whose participants have the traits that behavioural economics suggests should make it hardest to find evidence of maximisation: the market for panhandling at Metrorail stations in Washington, District of Columbia. We find that stations with more panhandling opportunities attract more panhandlers and that cross-station differences in hourly panhandling receipts are statistically indistinguishable from zero. Panhandling rates of return thus tend toward equality. Extreme 'behavioural' traits do not prevent maximisation in this market.