De l'homo-oeconomicus au primate non-humain: Trois études de cas sur les micro-fondations cognitives de l'économie

octobre 2018

Directeur(s) de thèse : Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde (Professeur, Université Paris-Sorbonne) - Thomas Boraud (Directeur Recherche, CNRS, Bordeaux)

Résumé de thèse

Through three studies, this thesis aims to explore the cognitive micro-foundations of economics. In a first study, I investigated the role of information for coordination on a unique medium of exchange, that is to say money emergence. Relying on the search theoretical models (Kiyotaki & Wright, 1989, and Iwai, 1996) and combining simulations and experiments, the goal of this study was to challenge the assumption that an exhaustive information is a necessary condition for money emergence. In a second study, I tackled the role of the information in duopoly competition. Using a model a-la-Hotelling (1929) and combining once again simulations and experiments, we tested the hypothesis that varying the amount of information available by consumers substantially impacts market’s dynamics. In a third study, I focused on decision-making under risk in rhesus monkeys, with the specific goal of examining how well rhesus behavior hews to aspects of prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1989, 1992), and especially an asymmetric treatment of gains and losses.