Do more intelligent investors take better economic decisions than less intelligent ones? Is risk attitude, in particular risk/loss aversion, linked to cognitive ability? Does an investor's cognitive ability impact his/her patience? Is financial performance positively linked to investor's intelligence? These research questions have become highly relevant with the development of behavioral economics and behavioral finance, following the recognition that humans are not homo economicus. This paper reviews the several strands of literature devoted to answering the above questions. We first discuss the barely debated definitions and measures of intelligence/cognitive ability used in psychology, economics, and finance. We then review the results related to the (controversial) link between risk aversion and cognitive ability. We observe that the literature provides clear results for patience; individuals with a higher level of cognitive ability being more patient on average. Finally, we review the contributions linking (successfully or not) portfolio choice and financial performance to cognitive ability.

Do more intelligent investors take better economic decisions than less intelligent ones? Is risk attitude, in particular risk/loss aversion, linked to cognitive ability? Does an investor’s cognitive ability impact his/her patience? Is financial performance positively linked to investor’s intelligence? These research questions have become highly relevant with the development of behavioral economics and behavioral finance, following the recognition that humans are not homo economicus. This paper reviews the literature devoted to answering the above questions. We first discuss the barely debated definitions and measures of intelligence/cognitive ability used in psychology, economics and finance. We then review the results related to the (controversial) link between risk aversion and cognitive ability. We show that the literature provides unambiguous results for patience; individuals with a higher level of cognitive ability being more patient on average. Finally, we review the contributions linking (successfully or not) portfolio choice and financial performance to cognitive ability.

For some years, economists discuss the effects of teaching economics on their students' behavior. Research in experimental economics emphasizes the impact of students' major on their choices; in particular, economics students behave more in accordance with the standard theory, which leads to more selfish behavior. The interpretation of these results leads to discuss two potential effects: an indoctrination effect and a selection bias. Recent empirical studies assess the relative importance of both effects. In this survey, we propose an overview of the empirical results and discuss their implications and perspectives, especially in terms of economics teaching.

A large body of literature has shown the existence of a gender gap in competitiveness and a handful of experimental works investigating the impact of age on this gap lead to inconclusive results. We propose an empirical investigation on that, which is based on survey data and complementary to experimentation. Using individual data from a very large survey (European Value Study on 48 countries from 1990 to 2008), we examine how age influences the gender gap in attitude toward competition. After confirming the existence of a strongly significant gender gap, we find evidence of a gendered effect of age on attitude toward competition. Attitude toward competition has a U-shaped relation with age for men with a least-negative view around 53 years but becomes more and more positive over age for women. We therefore observe a U-shaped pattern of the gender gap with age with a minimum around 60 years. Finally, we show that the gender gap and its change with age are sensitive to both individual and national gender stereotypes, suggesting influences of cultural factors. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Depuis quelques années, les économistes discutent des effets de leur enseignement sur le comportement des étudiants. Les recherches en économie expérimentale ont souligné l’influence de la discipline étudiée sur les choix des étudiants ; en particulier, les étudiants en économie se comportent généralement de manière plus cohérente avec la théorie standard, ce qui se traduit par des comportements plus égoïstes. L’interprétation de ces résultats conduit à discuter deux effets potentiels : un effet d’endoctrinement (les étudiants en économie apprennent à penser selon le modèle rationnel et égoïste de l’ Homo Economicus …) et un biais de sélection (les étudiants choisissant l’économie auraient un profil comportemental plus individualiste et moins prosocial). Des études empiriques récentes permettent d’évaluer l’importance relative de ces deux effets. Dans cet essai, nous proposons une synthèse des résultats obtenus jusqu’à présent et en discutons les implications et les perspectives, notamment en matière d’enseignement de l’économie.

The aim of this paper is to incorporate fair play norms into the analysis of contests where players have the ability to cheat in order to improve their chances of winning. We propose a utility function integrating fair play norms and apply it to a stylized model of rank-order tournament with cheating. We study how the set of equilibria is affected by the presence of fair play values. These values are shown to have an ambiguous impact on the incentives to cheat so that it may happen that there is more cheating with fair play values than without. We also study the impact of the number of contestants, with results suggesting that fair play norms may be effective in closed tournaments with few competitors (such as, for example, promotions in firms), but not in large-scale tournaments such as worldwide athletic or academic contests.

Experimental methods are now used in virtually all the fields of economics including the economics of banking The aim of this article is to discuss the stakes of the recent experimental research on banking issues, showing how the main experimental results may motivate the emergence of a behavioral approach in the field as it has been the case in other fields of economics

La méthode expérimentale est aujourd’hui utilisée dans pratiquement tous les champs de la science économique, y compris dans le domaine de l’économie bancaire. L’objet de cet article est de discuter des enjeux de l’expérimentation en économie bancaire, en montrant comment les principaux résultats expérimentaux peuvent motiver l’émergence d’un courant comportementaliste dans ce domaine, comme cela a été le cas dans d’autres champs de la science économique.

Athletes generally share some level of fair play norms that tend to inhibit them from doping. However, to many it remains debatable whether fighting against doping is socially desirable.

In this article, the author incorporates fair play norms into the analysis of the basic performance-enhancing drug game proposed in 2004 by Haugen (in the Journal of Sports Economics). In some cases, it leads to a modification in the very nature of the game, switching it from a prisoner's dilemma to a stag hunt game characterized by two pure-strategy equilibria: a risk-dominant doping equilibrium but also a payoff-dominant no-doping one. In such cases, the main problem for athletes becomes to coordinate their intentions and, hence, find a reliable coordinating device. The author suggests that some kind of preplay communication about doping and formal agreements through an antidoping charter may serve as such a device.

Economists use more and more sports data to test their theories, Sports offer a very fruitful "laboratory" where highly experienced and motivated individuals make permanently strategic decisions in a controlled and invariant framework. It is therefore not surprising to observe the rise in empirical studies based on sports data. These studies rely on four main categories of dataset: salaries of professional athletes, results from tournaments, records (especially from track and field) and athletes' strategies observed during the games. In this paper, we review the main results from these four types of studies.

Doping in sports is frequently presented as an example of Prisoner's Dilemma. Whereas the repetition of the game does not alter fundamentally the incentives to doping, the existence of fair play norms may modify profoundly the very nature of the game. This article surveys the game-theoretical analysis of doping. A special focus is given to a new approach, incorporating fair play norms.

Le dopage est souvent considéré comme un exemple de dilemme du prisonnier. Chaque sportif est partagé entre sa rationalité individuelle, qui l’incite à utiliser des produits dopants, et sa rationalité collective qui le pousse au contraire à collaborer à un monde sans dopage. Alors que la répétition du jeu n’altère pas fondamentalement les incitations au dopage, l’existence de normes de fair-play peut modifier profondément la nature même du jeu. Cet article fait une synthèse de l’analyse du dopage sous l’angle de la théorie des jeux en général, et du dilemme du prisonnier en particulier. Un éclairage particulier est donné à une nouvelle approche, intégrant les normes de fairplay.

Les économistes utilisent de plus en plus des données provenant du monde sportif pour tester leurs théories. En effet, le sport de compétition offre un «laboratoire » particulièrement riche, dans lequel des individus hautement expérimentés et extrêmement motivés font, en permanence, des choix stratégiques dans un cadre invariant et contrôlé. Il n’est donc pas surprenant d’assister à une montée en puissance des études empiriques fondées sur des données «sportives ». Ces travaux s’appuient essentiellement sur quatre grandes catégories de données: les salaires des joueurs professionnels, les performances enregistrées lors des compétitions, les records (notamment d’athlétisme) et les stratégies des sportifs observées pendant les compétitions. L’objet du présent article est de faire le point sur les principaux résultats provenant de ces quatre types d’études.

Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats d’une expérience pédagogique originale, menée sur 118 étudiants de première année de l’Institut d’Études Politiques de Strasbourg. Une séance de travaux dirigés portant sur la «tragédie des ressources communes » a été menée, pour une partie des étudiants à partir d’un jeu pédagogique, pour les autres de manière classique. Nous comparons les résultats qu’obtiennent les étudiants des groupes «classiques » et «expérimentaux » lors de tests consacrés spécifiquement au thème des ressources communes. Nous n’observons aucune différence entre les deux groupes d’étudiants lors des tests passés en fin de séance. Par contre, les étudiants des groupes expérimentaux obtiennent des résultats nettement meilleurs que leurs homologues des groupes classiques lors d’évaluations réalisées trois mois plus tard. Nos résultats plaident ainsi en faveur de l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’expérimentation permet une meilleure rétention du savoir à long terme.

In this article, we report the results of a pedagogical experiment involving 118 first-year undergraduate students. In a course on the "tragedy of the commons", some students (in "experimental" sections) participated in a brief classroom game while others (in "control" sections) received a traditional lecture-oriented presentation. We compare student achievement in tests specifically devoted to common resources. We find no significant difference between students in the experimental sections and those in traditional lecture-oriented sections in the answers to a multiple-choice test implemented at the end of the session. However, we do find a very strong effect on the results of evaluations made three months later, with students of experimental sections being significantly more successful. These results seem to indicate that the main advantage of experiments is to improve the long-term retention of knowledge.