Behavioral Economics Essay -- Neo-economists, Labor Market

Introduction Described as the economic field that deals with the analysis of the effect that the process of decision making impacts on the decisions reached, behavioral economics is a field that has elicited lots of interest from various scholars (Altman, 24). The economists consider this branch of economics as cognitive science due to the fact that it deals with analysis of the process of decision making. Eric Wanner one of the earlier founders of the discipline describes this economic field as a component of cognitive science in his attempt to explain the basis and the characteristic analysis of the discipline in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Simply put it is a field of economic that explains the decision making process of economic agents based on theories formulated in its different branches (Altman, 25-26). Behavioral economics is a diverse subject dealing with numerous topics but for purposes of this research paper, my focus will be on the labor market; fairness and reciprocity. Employ ees as well as their employers have financial interests for which they desire to achieve from their entry into the labor market or the industry for which the employers are recruiting employee (Altman, 29-30). The employee will always seem to reciprocate any extra pay from the employer with additional input whereas the employer will give incentives to encourage extra output. Literature review Neo-economists describe the labor market as one having employees who work for a wage and employers who pay wages for the work performed. Arkelof theory on fair wage stated that for an employer to pay extra money to the employee the employee always viewed the extra money as mere compensation for the above average work that they performed (Colin, 2010... ...effort in the tasks they perform. Fairness by the employer is the determinant in the level of output from an employee. The essay has also illustrated the impact that fairness and reciprocity has on the nature or mix of employment contracts that an employer decides to employ for the different tasks performed by the different employees. There are two classes of employee; some employees fall in the category of fair employees while the rest are trust employee. Most employees however are fair employees who expect fair treatment from their employers in order for them to reciprocate the generosity with increased output. The most popular kind of engagement is the bonus reward system. Further research needs to be carried out in determination of the relationship between fairness and reciprocity in the labor market and demand of goods of high quality at the product market.