Cognitive Economics – A Lecture by Andrei Shleifer
How do memory and attention shape economic decisions and financial markets? Join us for a lecture by Andrei Shleifer, Harvard University, and gain new insights into one of the most dynamic and influential research fields in modern economics.
The lecture takes place on June 4, 2026, from 15:00–17:00 at Copenhagen Business School. The event is hosted by BIGFI and the Department of Finance.
About the Lecture
Cognitive Economics is a rapidly growing research area relying on psychological features of memory and attention to understand human beliefs and behavior. Cognitive models account for a large body of experimental evidence pointing to instability and heterogeneity of beliefs and choice. They introduce new and empirically measurable concepts that shape beliefs and decision-making, such as experiences, similarity, and cues.
Using these concepts, Cognitive Economics offers systematic accounts of macroeconomic and financial expectations, market returns, financial decisions, and even responses to advertising. In this lecture, Professor Shleifer will present key insights from this emerging framework and discuss its implications for understanding economic behavior and market dynamics.
About Andrei Shleifer
Andrei Shleifer is John L. Loeb Professor of Economics at Harvard University. He holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. from MIT. Before joining Harvard in 1991, he taught at Princeton University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Professor Shleifer has worked in the areas of comparative corporate governance, law and finance, behavioral finance, and institutional economics. He has published seven books, including The Grabbing Hand (with Robert Vishny), Inefficient Markets: An Introduction to Behavioral Finance, and A Crisis of Beliefs: Investor Psychology and Financial Fragility (with Nicola Gennaioli), as well as more than one hundred academic articles.
He is Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and a fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Finance Association. In 1999, he received the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economic Association. According to RePEc, Professor Shleifer is the most cited economist in the world.