Robert H. Frank
Encyclopedia
Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor
of Management and a Professor of Economics
at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
at Cornell University
. He contributes to the "Economic View" column
, which appears every fifth Sunday in The New York Times
.
from the Georgia Institute of Technology
from 1966, and an M.A. in statistics
and a Ph.D. in economics, both from UC Berkeley
. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences
.
Frank has also been a Peace Corps
volunteer in rural Nepal
, the chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
, and a Professor of American Civilization at École des hautes études en sciences sociales
in Paris
.
He reasons that this race for status explains partly why increases in wealth do not increase well-being, or do not increase it much. If most of our earnings are spent on an empty game of status, we should not expect much improvement in quality of life.
This view can be seen as a call for serious changes in policy, because the well-being of the ordinary citizen is by most accounts the main goal of social and economic policy.
anger can be used as a precommitment
device. Envy can be useful in that it enforces more fair distributions.
By acting "irrationally" when treated unfairly, a person can obtain better results in situations which resemble the
ultimatum game
if their opponent anticipates their emotional response and adjusts their strategy accordingly.
. The subjects were students in their first and final years of undergraduate economics, and undergraduates in other disciplines. Subjects were paired, placed in a typical game scenario
, then asked to choose either to "cooperate" or to "defect". Pairs of subjects were told that if they both chose "defect" the payoff for each would be 1. If both cooperated, the payoff for each would be 2. If one defected and the other cooperated, the payoff would be 3 for the defector and 0 for the cooperator. Each subject in a pair made his choice without knowing what the other member of the pair chose.
First year economics students, and students doing disciplines other than economics, overwhelmingly chose to cooperate. But 4th year students in economics tended to not cooperate. Frank et al. concluded, that with "an eye toward both the social good and the well-being of their own students, economists may wish to stress a broader view of human motivation in their teaching."
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Management and a Professor of Economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management
The Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management is the graduate business school of Cornell University, a private Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York. It was founded in 1946 and renamed in 1984 after Samuel Curtis Johnson, founder of S.C...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
. He contributes to the "Economic View" column
Column (newspaper)
A column is a recurring piece or article in a newspaper, magazine or other publication. Columns are written by columnists.What differentiates a column from other forms of journalism is that it meets each of the following criteria:...
, which appears every fifth Sunday in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
Career
Frank holds a B.S. in mathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
from the Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
from 1966, and an M.A. in statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and a Ph.D. in economics, both from UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences
Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences is a division of Cornell University. It has been part of the university since its founding, although its name has changed over time. It grants bachelors degrees, and masters and doctorates through affiliation with the Cornell University Graduate School...
.
Frank has also been a Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
volunteer in rural Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, the chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
, and a Professor of American Civilization at École des hautes études en sciences sociales
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
The race for status where we all lose
Frank is one of the first to highlight the perversities of what are known as positional arms races. His book Choosing the Right Pond shows how important status is, and how much we pay for our status. Frank argues that the race for status is bad for society as a whole, as there cannot be improvement in overall status available, because every time person A rises above person B, the sum of their status remains the same. The only thing that changes is which person is where in the hierarchy.He reasons that this race for status explains partly why increases in wealth do not increase well-being, or do not increase it much. If most of our earnings are spent on an empty game of status, we should not expect much improvement in quality of life.
Winner take all
In his The Winner-Take-All Society, Frank discussed the fact that more and more of current economy and other institutions are moving toward a state where very few winners take very much, while the rest are left with little. Part of it is attributed to the modern structure of markets and technology.This view can be seen as a call for serious changes in policy, because the well-being of the ordinary citizen is by most accounts the main goal of social and economic policy.
The strategic role of emotions
In various economic papers and in the book Passion within reason, Frank discusses the idea that emotions have important roles in decision making and personal interactions, even when they seem to be irrational. For example, the emotions of love give more value to long term romantic commitment. A "rational" person would dump his partner as soon as he found a better partnership. Emotional attachment gives more long term meaning to the relationship. Put poetically: "Those sensible about love are incapable of it." Similarly,anger can be used as a precommitment
Precommitment
Precommitment is a strategy first discussed by Thomas Schelling that a party to a conflict can strengthen its position by cutting off some of its options to make its threats more credible...
device. Envy can be useful in that it enforces more fair distributions.
By acting "irrationally" when treated unfairly, a person can obtain better results in situations which resemble the
ultimatum game
Ultimatum game
The ultimatum game is a game often played in economic experiments in which two players interact to decide how to divide a sum of money that is given to them. The first player proposes how to divide the sum between the two players, and the second player can either accept or reject this proposal. ...
if their opponent anticipates their emotional response and adjusts their strategy accordingly.
Prisoner's dilemma and cooperation
Frank, Gilovich, and Regan (1993) is an experimental study of the prisoner's dilemmaPrisoner's dilemma
The prisoner’s dilemma is a canonical example of a game, analyzed in game theory that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interest to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W...
. The subjects were students in their first and final years of undergraduate economics, and undergraduates in other disciplines. Subjects were paired, placed in a typical game scenario
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...
, then asked to choose either to "cooperate" or to "defect". Pairs of subjects were told that if they both chose "defect" the payoff for each would be 1. If both cooperated, the payoff for each would be 2. If one defected and the other cooperated, the payoff would be 3 for the defector and 0 for the cooperator. Each subject in a pair made his choice without knowing what the other member of the pair chose.
First year economics students, and students doing disciplines other than economics, overwhelmingly chose to cooperate. But 4th year students in economics tended to not cooperate. Frank et al. concluded, that with "an eye toward both the social good and the well-being of their own students, economists may wish to stress a broader view of human motivation in their teaching."
Books
- Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status.. New York: Oxford University Press 1985
- Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of Emotions. New York: W.W. Norton 1988
- with Philip J. Cook: The Winner-Take-All Society. New York: Martin Kessler Books at The Free PressFree Press (publisher)Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...
1995 - Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000
- What Price the Moral High Ground? Ethical Dilemmas in Competitive Environments. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2004
- Microeconomics and Behavior. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill 2005
- with Ben BernankeBen BernankeBen Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....
: Principles of Economics. New York: McGraw-Hill (2003) ISBN 0071214593 - with Ben BernankeBen BernankeBen Shalom Bernanke is an American economist, and the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. During his tenure as Chairman, Bernanke has overseen the response of the Federal Reserve to late-2000s financial crisis....
: Principles of MacroEconomics. New York: McGraw-Hill (2006) ISBN 0073193976 - The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Solutions to Everyday Enigmas. New York: Basic Books 2007
- Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class. Berkeley: University of California Press 2007
- The Return of the Economic Naturalist. How Economics Helps Make Sense of Your World. Virgin Books, London 2009 ISBN 978-0-753519660
- The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good. Princeton: Princeton University Press (2011) ISBN: 0691153191
Articles
- Articles by Robert Frank 2005-2009 (PDF format)
- Robert Frank, Thomas GilovichThomas GilovichThomas D. Gilovich is a professor of psychology at Cornell University who has researched decision making and behavioral economics and has written popular books on said subjects. He has collaborated with Daniel Kahneman, Lee Ross and Amos Tversky....
& Dennis Regan: Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation? in: Journal of Economic PerspectivesJournal of Economic PerspectivesThe Journal of Economic Perspectives is an economic journal published by the American Economic Association. The journal is very broad in its scope...
. Volume 7, Number 2. Spring 1993. pp. 159–71 (PDF; 788 KB)