ADEC 7810 Empirical Behavioral Economics
Behavioral economics combines insights from economics and the cognitive sciences to study how human beings make decisions in various contexts. This course will introduce you to the key concepts in this field and give you the tools you need to start designing your own experiments for business or policy applications. Beginning from the standard rational model, we first study the decision-maker in isolation and then move on to the decision-maker in strategic settings. As we go, we will learn how to use simple theoretical models to describe and predict behavior, as well as analyze data from canonical published experiments using R. We will then see how firms and policy makers can design interventions help people make better decisions.
Course overview
- Department
- Advancing Studies
- School
- ADV
- Credits
- 3
- Level
- Graduate
- Offered
- Periodically in the Fall
Catalog details
Course evaluations
- Course rating
- 4.45 / 5 · Very Good
- Instructor rating
- 4.63 / 5 · Excellent
- Terms evaluated
- 7
| Term | Instructor | Course overall | Instructor overall | Well organized | Clear learning objectives | Intellectually challenging | Helpful assignments | Applicable beyond course | Attendance necessary | Weekly effort | Responses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2025 | Lawrence Degeest | 3.9 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4–6 hrs/week | 13 of 15 |
| Fall 2024 | Lawrence Degeest | 4.4 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.2 | 7–9 hrs/week | 16 of 21 |
| Fall 2023 | Lawrence Degeest | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 5 of 15 |
| Summer 2023 | Lawrence Degeest | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 12 of 14 |
| Fall 2022 (midterm) | Lawrence Degeest | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.3 | 10+ hrs/week | 6 of 11 |
| Summer 2022 | Lawrence Degeest | 4.7 | 4.7 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.3 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 4–6 hrs/week | 7 of 15 |
| Fall 2021 | Lawrence Degeest | 4.7 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 4.7 | 3.7 | 7–9 hrs/week | 7 of 18 |