PhD Defence: Ning Liu
In his dissertation ‘Behavioral Biases in Interpersonal Contexts’ ERIM’s Ning Liu presents evidence suggesting that the same types of biases in individual decision making under uncertainty pertain in interpersonal contexts
Ning defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Friday, 3 February 2017 at 11:30. His supervisor was Prof. Aurélien Baillon and his co-supervisor was Prof. Han Bleichrodt. Other members of the Doctoral Committee were Dr Josse Delfgaauw (ESE), Prof. Enrico Diecidue (INSEAD), and Dr Jan Stoop (ESE)
About Ning Liu
Ning Liu was born on February 18, 1987 in Beijing, China. He received a bachelor degree in management at Renmin University of China. He came to Rotterdam, and joined the MPhil program of ERIM in 2009. After receiving his master degree in 2011, he continued to pursue his PhD in Prof. Peter P. Wakker’s Behavioral Economics group at Erasmus School of Economics, supervised by Prof.dr. Aurélien Baillon, Prof.dr. Han Bleichrodt, and Prof.dr. Peter P. Wakker.
In 2014, Ning was a visiting PhD student at Harvard University, hosted by Prof. dr. Eric S. Maskin. His research focuses on decision making in interpersonal environments. He is interested in human’s risk preference, time preference, and social preferences. In particular, he studies how human interaction affects these fundamental human preferences. He adopts both theoretical and empirical approaches. His current research also addresses the implicational issues of communicating uncertainty related to climate change. Ning’s research has appeared in leading journals including Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Theory and Decision, Nature Climate Change.
Ning Liu holds a research fellow position in the Center for Research on Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy (Istituto di Economia delle Fonti di Energia, IEFE) at University Luigi Bocconi of Milan.
Thesis Abstract
This thesis presents evidence suggesting that the same types of biases in individual decision making under uncertainty pertain in interpersonal contexts. The chapters above demonstrate in specific contexts how specific interpersonal factors attenuate, amplify, or replicate these biases.
One of the most natural interpersonal contexts is group decision making. The group effects on decisions consist of aggregation and communication, and disentangling these could help us improve our understanding of the group decision making process and make better predictions. Because the two measures of rationality applied in Chapter 2, namely stochastic dominance and EU-compliance, are both dichotomous, we use the simulated decisions from pure voting as benchmarks to isolate the communication effects.
Chapter 3 describes how simple pieces of information were provided to individuals, with the aim of helping them evaluate the quality of the estimates they received in interpersonal communication. Chapter 4 extends Yaari's definition of comparative risk aversion to enable comparisons between people holding different beliefs. The last chapter presents evidence that the mere presentation with cash could make a substantial psychological impact on people's risk attitudes by changing their likelihood insensitivity in probability weighting. The cash effects that lower valuations could potentially come from a buyer's evolutionary instinct in bargaining triggered by cash. Testing the existence of such instincts and, if they exist, finding what triggers them could be complementary to the current study.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
