Be­ha­vi­or­al Eco­nom­ics II

Course content

The course aims to provide students with a broad insight into the many areas where psychology is explicitly involved in economic theory. The course is primarily based on behavioral economics research, which in the wake of the collaboration between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has taken an increasingly central position in economic theory and practice. Behavioral economics research covers, among other things, decision rationality and heuristics, prospect theory, intertemporal choices, dual process theory, etc. The course will introduce these areas and review how behavioral economics theory has been and can be applied in a number of key areas such as business, organization, sustainability, user experience and policy. Further applications of the behavioral and experimental toolkit to social issues will be presented.

The first block of lectures will introduce the field of behavioral economics and will examine its roots in applied economics, rationality, and behavioral theory. The second block will focus more on practical issues within the curriculum of behavioral economics. The purpose there is to provide space for analyzing behavioral methods and approaches to tackle social and business issues, to explore the material from various angles and to challenge key hypotheses based on the syllabus.