Behavioural economics

Behavioural economics incorporates insights mainly from psychology into neo-classical economic theory to describe human behaviour more accurately. Economic experiments are a common research method because they allow for causal inferences. At the heart of our research agenda lies the question of what shapes human behaviour and how different environment, from culture to institutional settings, affects human behaviour.

Our research is organised into three main themes:

Behaviour and decisions: We investigate core economic preferences such as social, time and risk preferences. We also investigate how decision environment affects behaviour, such as making decision as a member of a household and behalf of others, e.g., one’s child. Prosocial behaviour, particularly contributing to public goods, is one of the main research fields, and we are particularly interested in formal and informal institution's role in cooperative behaviour. Furthermore, we also investigate how cultural factors affect preferences and behaviour.

Policy interventions and well-being: Our research on policy interventions focusses on how policymakers should use experiments to make better decisions and set priorities, i.e., is who should be prioritised if the budget is limited. Furthermore, we use life satisfaction as a proxy for well-being (utility) to investigate a broader spectrum of factors than one’s own income affecting an individual’s well-being. Our research has focussed on positional concerns, i.e., is how an individual is affected by others’ income levels, and the effect on well-being.

Research methods: Behavioural economists apply experimental methods, from experiments in an economic lab to field experiments, but they also use surveys to investigate research questions. Using these methods, we have focussed our research on external validity using different types of experiments in the lab and in the field, as well as surveys and economic experiments in which the objective in both cases is to elicit the same types of preferences.