Doctoral thesis: What wouldn’t you do for others?

These are some of the facts that have been empirically proven in Mats Ekman’s doctoral thesis ’Essays on Social Economics’. Ekman also finds theoretical support that husbands tend to out-earn their wives since men can never be as sure about their parenthood as women. Thus, a husband has more to lose if his spouse was to cheat on him, while a cheating wife rather gets “punished” with a decrease in her consumption possibilities.

The main subject of the thesis is social incentives, and through his studies of different situations, Mats Ekman has been able not only to prove the social incentives but also to show how susceptible they are to changes in the environment.

-    Knowledge of other people’s expectations is something that often affect how people act, Ekman explains. One of the most important contributions in his thesis is the fact that the data has been collected from authentic situations, instead of
laboratory like situations where social incentives often are studied.

Mats Ekman defends his doctoral thesis in Economics entitled “Essays on Social Economics” on Friday 19 October 2018. The thesis can be read at: https://helda.helsinki.fi/dhanken/handle/123456789/198995

Time: 19 October 2018 at 12.00
Place: Futurum, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki
Opponent: Associate Professor Ola Andersson, Uppsala University
Kustos: Professor Rune Stenbacka, Hanken School of Economics

More information:
Mats Ekman
mats.ekman@hanken.fi
+46(0)73-662-1444