Robert H. Frank
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Professor Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and a Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times.
Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was Professor of American Civilization at École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.
Professor Frank's books include Choosing the Right Pond, Passions within Reason, Microeconomics and Behavior, Luxury Fever, and What Price the Moral High Ground? The Winner-Take-All Society, co-authored with Philip Cook, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in Business Week's list of the ten best books for 1995. He recently released two books on microeconomics - The Economic Naturalist and Falling Behind.
Professor Frank holds a BS in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also holds an MA in statistics and a PhD in economics, both from UC Berkeley.
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[edit] Notable theories
[edit] The race for status where we all lose
Frank is known for his book Choosing the Right Pond that 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 raises 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.
[edit] Winner take all
In a book titled "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 average citizen is by most accounts the main goal of social and economic policy.
[edit] 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 finds a better partnership. Emotional attachment gives more long term meaning to the relationship. Poetically "Those sensible about love are incapable of it"
[edit] Publications
- 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 the Emotions. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988
- The Winner-Take-All Society, with Philip J. Cook, New York: Martin Kessler Books at The Free Press, 1995. Penguin paperback edition, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese translations, 1996. Japanese translation, 1998. Spanish and Italian translations forthcoming. (New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1995; Business Week Top Ten Books of 1995; San Francisco Review of Books Critics Choice Award, 1995; China Times Top Ten Books of 1996; The London Observer, Best Books of the Year List, 1996)
- 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, 6e. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005
- Principles of Economics, with Ben S. Bernanke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006
- 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
- Articles
- Robert Frank, Thomas Gilovich, Dennis Regan, 'Does Studying Economic Inhibits Cooperation?' (1993) 7(2) Journal of Economic Perspectives 159-171, a study comparing students in their first year of their economics programme and their final year, and also students in different programmes. They were given a typical game scenario, where you can choose to "cooperate" or "defect". They were told that if they and another player 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. You did not know what the other player would choose. First year students and non economists overwhelmingly chose to cooperate, while once trained as economists, people tended to not cooperate. The article 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."
