Overfulfilling the Plan?

About half a month ago I announced my intention to write a paper on Shakespeare and Behavioral Economics in three drafts, with the first draft due today. I am pleased (and really, shocked) to announce that I have had a first (shortish, about 5,200 words) draft for a week or so already, and even sent it to a friend and got helpful comments back! I'm now trying to expand it a bit with a still-unwritten section on happiness, so I don't yet have a coherent draft 1.5. But I am willing to say that I have overfulfilled the plan for the July 1 deadline. 

I won't post the draft, but here are the section titles:

1. Introduction

2. Three Elements of Prospect Theory

3. Shakespeare on Reference Points and Loss Aversion

4. Shakespeare on Being Risk-Loving in the Loss Domain

5. Reference Points, Sunk Costs, and Subjective Value

6. Happiness (in progress)

7. Conclusion: Choose Your Reference Point Well

The second draft is due on July 18, and I want to maintain (and meet) that deadline. (Not sure that I will indeed include a Happiness section in Draft Two.) But given that I am ahead of schedule, I want to be more ambitious: I want to have a very rough prospectus together by July 18 for a book on Shakespeare and Economics. 

Incidentally, in the post setting up the initial deadlines I also mentioned that I wanted to send Nudging Drug Use off to a journal; I have done so. The prudent behavior would be to have in mind the next journal to send it to after it is rejected... but maybe I have become more resilient? Or not...

The Promised Abstract

Prospero Theory: Behavioral Economics and Shakespeare

Jim Leitzel 

Abstract: Prospect theory, a mainstay model of behavioral economics, was designed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) to offer a better descriptive account of human decision making than that provided by rational choice theory – and in many instances, it seems to deliver on its originators’ goal. Descriptions of plausible human behavior, then, should generally accord well with the features of prospect theory. The writings of William Shakespeare – an acclaimed observer of humanity – provide a classic data set of human behavior that can be tested for its adherence to prospect theory. This paper explores Shakespeare’s works, finding that the main elements of prospect theory – reference point dependence, loss aversion, and asymmetric gain/loss risk preferences – are well represented within the Shakespeare canon. Hamlet may be a rational actor (Leitzel 2023), but Shakespeare’s characters embrace prospect-theory-consistent behavior again and again.

One and one-half months for a paper on Shakespeare and Behavioral Economics!

Five Drafts is back! 

OK, there was that paper from three years ago about Nudging Drug Use. I did indeed produce an almost complete(?) version for an October, 2022 conference, but then did nothing more -- until the past month. Here's the ssrn.com version (posted yesterday, so still preliminary) of Nudging Drug Use! The recent surge of activity on the paper is related to my Winter 2025 revival, after a 15 year or so interregnum, of my Regulation of Vice course. The next step is to send Nudging Drug Use off to a journal. Let me suggest a tight deadline for that, say, June 16, 2025 -- Bloomsday!

While I am updating the situation with previous Five Drafts endevours, let me mention that the published version of the Parthenon Marbles paper, retitled "Athens or London? The Parthenon Marbles and economic efficiency," is available (open access) here.

But the recalling to life of Five Drafts has nothing to do with this previous, unfinished business. No, Five Drafts is back because I want to write a paper in the next 1.5 months or so. The paper is about Shakespeare and Behavioral Economics -- a topic I have been blogging about on and off over the years. The idea is to build my Shakespeare collection, which in terms of publications (but not of mulling) is miniscule: here's the one (open access -- do you sense a pattern?)! I'll post a schedule, maybe for an Abstract and three drafts, on the sidebar. For the Abstract (which will no doubt be wildly incompatible with the contents of the finished version of the paper), I'll go with tomorrow: June 15, 2025.

Excited to be back drafting!

Abstract for Nudging Illegal and Legal Drug Use

Much of the appeal of policy nudges is that when successful, they offer effectiveness at low cost, and without requiring coercion. But nudges are often used within regulatory regimes that also feature elements of coercion, as when forced savings plans such as social security are teamed with nudges designed to encourage pension contributions.

Drug prohibition is highly coercive and also quite venerable: arguments in support of, and in opposition to, the prohibition of recreational drugs are well-known. The growth of nudge theory and practice suggests a new sort of comparison, that between the prohibitory status quo supplemented with nudges, and a legalization regime also incorporating nudges. Does the potential for beneficial nudging improve the relative case for drug legalization, or does it offer a better style of prohibition that would capture some of the benefits of a more liberalized regime, while skirting the risks of legalization? 

In addressing this question, this paper first identifies nudge-supplemented drug regulatory regimes within both the prohibitory status quo and a reasonable legal alternative. Within a regime of prohibition, appropriate nudges might be able to improve the uptake of treatment, or to enhance compliance with a harm reduction regimen, for instance. In a legal drug control system, nudges can be used to capture some of the benefits that prohibition might bring in terms of dissuading imprudent drug consumption, while securing those benefits without threatening drug users with criminal penalties. Comparisons between the likely consequences of the nudge-enhanced alternatives will then be made. Evidence for likely consequences can to some extent be drawn from existing drug policy regimes: state-level legalizations of cannabis in the past decade provide evidence for the value of some nudges within a legal regime, for instance, while the states that have not legalized also offer various models for nudging under prohibition. Decriminalization regimes, as in Portugal or Oregon, present a further intermediate case, one where the demand side for drugs (including cannabis but also “harder” drugs) is more-or-less legal while the supply side remains under a strict prohibition. 

OK, this is more a general plan of attack than it is an abstract, but it is what we have now. Onto Draft 1!

Paper on Nudging Illegal and Legal Drug Use

In about a month I must produce a paper on drugs and nudges. I can't really start today, alas. But I must finish in a month. I will track the process (and, I note aspirationally, post the drafts) here.

Long-Delayed Update on the Russian Vice Policy Paper...

 ...provided in a search for closure so that the next pressing project can come to the pages on Five Drafts.

I am happy to report that the published version is available in Policy Sciences. Rush to the link to be the first on your block to access this shiny newish article!

For more on what I have been up to, please see this nDrafts post. 

Russian Vice Policy Schedule

The working title of the Russian vice policy paper is "Vice Policy in Russia: Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling"; my goal is to have a first draft complete (and posted here) by September 15, 2016. The deadline for the second draft is October 9, 2016, and the third and final (?) draft is slated for October 30, 2016. As for reading commitments, maybe a book each on alcohol, tobacco, and gambling? I'll start with alcohol -- perhaps Alcohol: A History, by Rod Phillips?

OK, here we go...