ECON - 345. Behavioral Economics

3 credit(s)
Behavioral economics uses insight from psychology and economics to investigate the limits of human rationality. Many economic models assume that individuals can quickly and easily assess options and will select the one that satisfies their self-interest. But experimental results and everyday experience show that this is not always the case. Behavioral economics is an attempt to understand how individuals actually act in real life, focused on two main questions. The first is “What motivates individuals?” - namely, is it really self-interest? The second question is “How do individuals actually make decisions?” - we will see that it is very often not the rational, utility maximizing models of neoclassical microeconomics. Popular press books and recent scholarly articles will be used to assess the current understanding of human decision-making behavior.

Prerequisite(s): ECON 201
Attribute: ARTS