Date of Award

Spring 5-3-2024

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department/Major

Economics

First Advisor

Sebastian Wai

Second Advisor

Mike Allgrunn

Third Advisor

Mandie Weinandt

Keywords

Behavioral Economics, Game Theory, Big-5 Personality Traits, Alcohol Consumption, Beer Consumption, Bertrand Oligopoly Model, Irrational Proofs

Subject Categories

Behavioral Economics | Health Economics

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect that binge drinking has on economic performance in a standard Bertrand-style game. Results indicate that binge drinking, when paired with poor protective behavioral strategies, increases cooperative pricing in a Bertrand-style game, with this result persisting across various contextual frameworks. In the aggregate, this study contributes to the literature by being the first of its kind to evaluate the effect of observational binge-drinking meta scores on performance in a Bertrand-style game. To measure economic performance in the market, participants play the 2/3 average game and a standard Bertrand game with zero marginal cost, both implemented using z-Tree. By employing a targeted binge-drinking questionnaire (DBQ and PBS) and controlling for personality (AB5C and the NEO5-20), I isolate the effect of binge drinking on participants’ performance in the two experimental games.

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