| Teacher | Face to face hours | Working hours | ECTS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Pezanis-Christou & Eric Guerci (Gredeg) | 30 | 60 | 6 |
Description
In this course, we introduce the field of behavioral and experimental economics from a historical and methodological perspective. We then discuss various models of decision making in both non-strategic and strategic environments. The former will be based on the literature and recent advancement of Decision Theory, the latter will be based on Game Theory. In discussing these models, we will refer to the experimental literature that has tested the implications of these models, and motivated new theoretical developments. Furthermore, we will also discuss findings from the literature on heuristics used in decision making. The course adopts a hands-on training approach. Some lectures will be given at the CoCoLab experimental laboratory. Students will participate to ad hoc laboratory experiments and will be encouraged to discuss the outcomes of these experiments.
Learning outcomes
- Understand how economists deal with cognition and decision making;
- Understand how economists design, run and analyze data coming from simple economic experiments;
- Discover new trends in economic thinking (role of emotions...).
Requirements
- Notions of game theory;
- Notions of statistics and probability.
Course plan
- History and evolution of the relation between psychology and economics.
- Economic experiments: methodological issues and debates.
- Behavioral economics: theoretical foundations and their operationalization into public policies.
- Psychological bias and heuristics in choice under risk.
- Psychological bias and heuristics in choice under ambiguity.
- Social preferences in strategic decision making.
- The three major types of reasoning: deductive / inductive / abductive.
- Trade-off between stability and variability in the decision making and the role of emotions.
- Human vs Artificial: from prediction to decision-making.