Course Schedule


Lehrveranstaltungen

Behavioral Economics (Vorlesung)

Dozent/in: Mario Mechtel

Termin:
wöchentlich | Montag | 10:15 - 11:45 | 14.10.2024 - 31.01.2025 | C 3.120 Seminarraum | Start 1. lecture week

Inhalt: Based on numerous empirical and experimental insights, the field of behavioral economics has emerged within the last decades and become an important part of mainstream economic research. The course will cover fundamental topics from this field. We will analyze the effects of reference points for behavior, how individuals make intertemporal choices, the role of social preferences (e.g., altruism, fairness, envy) for decision-making, and how social groups individuals identify with affect behavior. Additionally, we will cover well-known heuristics and biases (e.g., confirmation bias, overconfidence). We will also analyze strategic interaction using behavioral game theory. At the end, we will cover selected applications (e.g., labor market, happiness research, nudging). Behavioral economics embeds insights from disciplines such as psychology and sociology, but aims at building formal models of economic behavior to generate testable predictions. In this course, we will stick to basic principles of neoclassical reasoning and modeling, but we will depart in some dimensions and analyze situations in which individuals have limited willpower, rationality, and self-interest (in some sense). We will, subsequently, compare behavioral approaches and results with those from standard neoclassical economics. Contents 1. Introduction 2. Prospect Theory 3. Intertemporal Choices 4. Social Preferences 5. Social Identity 6. Behavioral Game Theory 7. Heuristics and Biases 8. Selected Applications