Behavioral Economics

Autumn Semester 2022
Wednesday, 12:15 - 16:00, PER 21, D230
ECTS: 4.5
Office Hours: by appointment (  jana.freundt@unifr.ch)

Course descriptionMoodleSyllabus


Description:

This course covers topics in Behavioral Economics, which aims at integrating insights from psychology into economics. The course will cover central themes in psychology and economics, including non-standard time and risk preferences, social preferences and fairness, reference-dependent preferences, decision biases and heuristics. We will look at how these behavioral models can affect market interactions and inform policy makers. In addition, we will review empirical and experimental evidence for or against these models and discuss study designs. 

The main goal of the course is to introduce students to some of the key concepts of behavioral economics. This involves both formal models of behavior and their empirical and experimental assessment. The course is therefore suited both for students interested in theoretical and in empirical work. An emphasis will be put on (lab and field) experiments that test and inform behavioral models and the lectures will (briefly) introduce students to some of the core principles of experimental economics. All lectures are based on articles published in international scientific journals and students will have to present an article in class as well as develop their own research proposal.


Prerequisites:

The course requires sound knowledge of microeconomics and statistics at the undergraduate level as well as good English language skills.


Required Readings:

The class will cover multiple scientific articles published in leading journals.