Mannberg, Andrea

The main research interest of the researcher relates to how human rationality is affected by the physical and social context, and how insights from psychology can be merged with economic theory in order to better understand the process underlying human decision making. The papers included in the PhD-thesis focus on sexual risk taking in the presence of HIV/AIDS. In two theoretical papers, models for sexual behavior are developed and analyzed. The first paper relates to the effects of future prospects, in terms of health, on incentives to abstain from sexual risk taking in the present. This paper has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming issue of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics. The second paper relates to how affect induced myopia, in terms of sexual risk taking, in combination with the human need to maintain a positive self-image affects sexual risk taking in future time periods. A third theoretical paper in the thesis relates to how social and personal norms are interlinked. This paper is co-authored with Thomas Sjögren at the Department of Economics, at Umeå University. The last paper in the thesis is an empirical analysis of the theoretical model developed in “Risky Sex in a Risky World- Sexual behavior in a HIV/AIDS environment” and is joint work with Martine Visser, University of Cape Town, and Mintewab Bezabih, University of Portsmouth. The theoretical model is tested on data from the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS). In addition to work directly related to her thesis, the researcher has also collaborated with University of Gothenburg and the University of Dar Es Salaam, within the Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative, on a project relating to the welfare effects of the commercialization of Nile Perch in Lake Victoria. This collaboration resulted in the implementation of the Lake Victoria Household Survey in October 2008.