The effects of income and occupational status on risk and trust behaviours: An experimental study within the framework of behavioural economics

This study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the historical development, current methodologies, and potential future transformations of behavioural economics. It empirically examines the elements of risk and social preferences in individuals' economic relationships through trust, cooperation, and utility maximization theories, focusing on occupational status and income impacts. In this context, this study is important in terms of providing new empirical evidence and diversifying the literature on behavioural and experimental economics, which is quite limited in Türkiye. The first chapter addresses the conceptual foundations and philosophical discussions of behavioural economics. Furthermore, the study evaluates the transformation in classical economics, which proved inadequate in explaining the economic outcomes of human behaviour from the 1950s onward, leading to the emergence, development, and current state of behavioural economics. Social preferences such as decision-making, risk-taking, trust, cooperation, reciprocity, and fairness are also examined within this framework. The second chapter focuses on the games and experimental methods commonly used in behavioural economics. It provides detailed information on field, laboratory, online, and natural experiments, analyzing widely used approaches such as the ultimatum, dictator, public goods, and trust games. The third and final chapter presents an empirical study that aims to test the economic effects of individual differences such as income and occupational status on risk-taking and trust using a natural experimental approach. The data for this experimental study were derived from the first season of the Turkish television game show Güven Bana (Trust), which aired in 2013 and featured 40 episodes. The dataset includes interactions between contestants with varying income levels and occupational statuses. During the competition, contestants' behaviours related to trust and risk-taking were analyzed econometrically, focusing on factors such as button-pressing strategies and total earnings, which directly influenced the economic outcomes of the game. Logistic regression analysis was employed to examine contestants' button-pressing decisions, while linear regression analysis was used to evaluate their earnings. In both models, the primary independent variable was occupational status, while demographic variables such as age and gender were used as control variables. The findings reveal that female contestants were less likely to take risks than male contestants, that reward targets and the number of errors made influenced game strategies, and that differences in occupational status were significant determinants of economic outcomes.