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  • Behavioral Economics (Fall semester)

  • This course aims to introduce findings in psychology, behavioral and experimental economics and discuss the related implications in economic exchange. By learning how people might behave ‘irrationally’ (as defined by standard economists), you will gain insight into real world problems, such as policy making, contract designing, marketing, management.

  • Social Norms and Economics (Fall semester)

  • Social norms play an important role in individual economic decisions and influence economic exchange outcomes. This raises several important questions. What mechanisms are effective in enforcing social norms? To what extent and in what contexts might we expect norm obedience absent external economic incentives? How should we take into account the role of social norms when designing economic institutions? This course discusses experimental research in economics, law and psychology that takes steps towards answering these and other related questions.

  • Organizations (Spring semester)

  • Organizations, like markets, are comprised of a diversity of self-interested individuals. Indeed, even CEOs who own shares of a company take actions that benefit themselves at the expense of the firm. The design of organizations is thus crucial in deciding what outcome organizations can achieve. Critical questions include: How to assign decision rights? What incentives should employees face? How to motivate employees to work hard? How to keep the best workers? How to evaluate employees’ performance? What’s the role of leadership in organizations? The answers to these questions are important in designing efficient organizations.
    This course is intended to give you an in-depth introduction to the design of organizations (most business firms). While we will focus on the standard economic approach, we will also discuss some new insights brought about by recent research in behavioral economics (psychology and economics) on related topics.

 Previous courses

  • Introduction to Decision Processes,  Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

  • We make decisions every day of our lives. Sometimes we are happy with our decisions. Other times we are regretful and believe that, if we had the chance to do it again, we could make a better decision. On the other hand, many of us have the experience of making the same mistake repeatedly. In past decades psychologists, and more recently economists, have provided interesting insights regarding how people’s decisions deviate from the optimal. This course is an introduction to the theory and empirical evidence on human decision processes. We will study how heuristics and biases affect individual decisions, and how individual decisions differ from those made at group level. The goal of this course is to develop an understanding of the nature and implications of human limitations in judgment and decision. This will help you to better predict decisions made by others, and will also assist in improving your own decisions.

  • Punishment and Cooperation, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) Program, University of Pennsylvania

  • Punishment is an important tool for promoting cooperation in social environments including families, companies, markets and courts. This seminar uses experimental research in economics, law and psychology to explore critical issues in punishment and cooperation. Why do people sometimes incur costs to themselves in order to punish others? How do people behave under punishment threats? Why do punishment threats sometimes have detrimental effects on cooperation? How are emotions and punishment connected? Students will investigate these and related research questions. Each student will design an experiment that can inform a single research topic. Each student will make classroom presentations and submit term-papers detailing her topic and the way she address it using laboratory or field experiments.