Economics 408 - Behavioral Economics

Behavioral economics is an active research field, drawing together people from psychology, economics, political science, and management, among other fields. Economic theory is based on the idea that economic agents are rational and investigates the implications of such rational behavior.  Empirical research has revealed discrepancies between derived "optimal" strategies and the actual behavior of decision makers in domains as varied as labor supply, asset allocation, retail markets and credit card usage.  Based on these empirical findings, behavioral economics questions the assumption of perfect rationality and uses insights from psychology to improve theoretical and empirical predictions of standard economic theory. This course aims to introduce students to this rapidly emerging and important field.

Requisite: ECON 300/301 and Math 121.  Limited to 35 students. Spring semester. Professor Raymond.