Nachwuchsgruppenleiterin 'Development Economics'

Büro Wilhelm-Weber-Str. 2:

Raum: 2.105
Tel. +49 (0) 551- 39 10677
Fax. +49 (0) 551- 39 14059

Email: mibanez@uni-goettingen.de




Research Areas:

Economics of crime.
This research area focuses on theoretical and empirical investigation on the motivational factors behind participation in illegal activities. In particular, our research considers behavioral models of crime that take into account monetary and non-monetary factors that affect behavior. We investigate the effect of morality, religiosity, acceptance to the authorities and social networks on criminal participation. In addition, we consider how poverty or the impossibility to make a living out of a legal activity impacts behavior. This area of research also investigates the effectiveness of different policies used to deal with crime.

Technological Change
The emphasis of this area of research is double. First, we investigate the determinants to adopt a new technology and the effect of different policy interventions. We investigate whether the technological change is pro-poor in the sense that it reaches the less favored. We are interested in understanding the dynamics of technological change and consider the effect of learning by doing and learning from others. The objective of this area of research is to construct a panel data that captures individual dimension across time. Eventually we would like to implement a small scale natural field experiment.
Second, we investigate the impact of technological change on well being. We consider whether technological change succeeds in generating higher income opportunities to adopters and in particular to poor farmers. We also investigate the impact of new technologies on the environment.

Attitude towards risk
The objective of this research area is to investigate risk preferences. In particular we are interested in comparing the validity of competing theories on behavior under risk. We use experimental methods to characterize attitude towards risk. The emphasis of our study is non-student population in developing countries who is confronted to risky situations in their daily life. This allows investigating how individual circumstances impact risk preferences.

Inequality
We investigate preferences for income distribution using hypothetical experiments. In addition we study how cooperation changes as the societies become more uneven. We pay particular attention to the behavior of those who are relatively better off compared with those who are worse off. Differences in behavior of both groups are associated with redistributive preferences.