Behavioural Economics

Course goals

Learning objectives
The objectives of this course are, first, to give students a thorough basis in the foundations of and the main themes in behavioural economics; second, to allow students to develop a good overview of the most recent developments within behavioural economics; third, to assess when a solution to an economic problem can be improved by taking behavioural economics insights into account.
 
At the end of the course the student is able to:

• Understand the main themes that have developed within behavioural economics;
• Understand the most recent contributions within behavioural economics;
• Identify how economic questions can be investigated from a behavioural economics perspective.
• Identify circumstances under which a more behaviourally oriented economic approach improves the understanding of an economic problem.
• Critically read and analyse recent literature in behavioural economics.

The course contains the following academic skills:

• Academic research
• Academic reasoning and working

Content

A wealth of empirical findings against neoclassical economic theory has made an economic model of the selfish, perfectly rational homo economicus untenable. A more behaviourally-oriented economic science is needed to understand and tackle societal problems, which takes into account that economic agents do not only consider their own interests and do not always act rationally. In this course, the foundations of the subfield of behavioural economics will be treated, as well as key topics that have developed in this subfield in the last few decades, including reference-dependent preferences, social preferences, intertemporal choice, and behavioural game theory. While more and more courses in economics touch upon behavioural-economics aspects of their subject matter, a thorough and separate treatment is needed for a full understanding of economic behaviour. Because behavioural economics is at the forefront of developments in economic science, attention is paid to new developments in the form of discussing recent papers.

Effort requirements 
•     80% attendance of all tutorials;
•     Sufficient preparation of the tutorial questions;
•     Sufficient participation in the tutorial group.


In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.