Exploring the future of Behavioral Economics with innovative young researchers. Topics include analyzing poverty decisions, overcoming the planning fallacy, neuroeconomics, prospect theory, vaccine lottery impacts, and the importance of transparency in research. The podcast highlights the evolving landscape of decision-making studies in diverse settings.
Young researchers are reshaping behavioral economics through brain studies, large experiments, and poverty research.
Incentivizing self-set production goals improves productivity, while visualizing budget aids realistic financial planning.
Deep dives
The Future of Behavioral Economics
Behavioral economics, driven by pioneers like Richard Thaler and Kahneman, is evolving. Danny Kahneman reflects on its future, suggesting that young professionals hold the key to shaping the field's next phase. Three emerging scientists are pushing behavioral economics in new directions, conducting brain studies, large-scale experiments, and probing poverty complexities in developing countries.
Understanding Poverty Through Behavioral Economics
Supreet Kaur, an economics professor, shares her personal journey from India to the US, highlighting the commonalities in poverty challenges faced across different nations. She delves into how applying psychological insights to understand poverty is vital due to varying decision-making environments and economic infrastructures in developed and developing countries.
Boosting Productivity Through Self-Control and Planning Fallacy Insights
Studies show that incentivizing self-set production goals enhances worker productivity without additional pay. Additionally, the planning fallacy, where people underestimate time and resources needed for tasks, affects productivity. By breaking down budgets and visualizing expenses, individuals develop a more realistic view, leading to better financial and productivity outcomes.
Innovations in Behavioral Economics and Neuroscience
Neuroeconomist Rahul Bui combines neuroscience, psychology, and economics to explore how the brain processes economic decisions. By understanding loss aversion and reference dependence, insights on decision-making behaviors emerge. Integrating brain research with machine learning enhances understanding of human irrationality, laying a foundation for future economic studies.
To look into the future of Behavioral Economics, we talked to three young researchers who are pushing the field further. A new generation of researchers is striving to understand decision-making in the developing world, how brains process economic decisions, and how bigger, more transparent scientific methods can shed light on basic principles of choice.
This is the fifth episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."
*Correction: During Rahul Bhui's section of the episode, we mistakenly said that people "don't take as many risks when they're framed as potential losses…even though they're relatively happy to take risks when they're framed as potential gains." We accidentally got this flipped! In truth, research on prospect theory shows that people tend to be risk-seeking in the loss domain but risk-averse in the gain domain.
For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/