Experimental and Behavioural Economics
Experimental and Behavioural Economics
The Experimental and Behavioural Economics Research Group (EBERG) draws its membership from economists based at the Economics Department at Warwick who work in the fields of Experimental Economics, Behavioural Economics and/or Subjective Wellbeing (“Happiness Economics”). Experimental methods are used in many fields of economics, including behavioural economics, public economics, labour economics, political economy, game theory, and financial economics. Behavioural economics is an attempt to understand decision-making in the context of the many psychological, cognitive and emotional factors that influence behaviour. Behavioural economists typically build on traditional economic models with insights from psychology or neuroscience. Since behavioural economics concerns the underlying motivations for behaviour it can be hard (though not impossible) to find data to support or develop behavioural theories without the use of experimental methods which explains the close relationship between the two fields.
Experimental and behavioural research are fundamentally interdisciplinary and this is reflected in the fact that the group is linked to other similar groups across the University of Warwick and beyond. DR@W is the overarching interdisciplinary group of all behavioural scientists in Warwick which, together with EBERG, also takes members from the Behavioural Science Group at Warwick Business School and behavioural and experimental psychologists based in the Psychology Department, and hosts a weekly seminar, the DR@W Forum. Many members of EBERG are also affiliated with Bridges, an interdisciplinary centre that includes behavioural and experimental work in its remit that also hosts regular seminars and workshops. Behaviour, Brain and Society is one of the University of Warwick’s global research priorities (GRPs) and the co-ordinator of EBERG sits on the board of the GRP. Several group members are actively involved in the ESRC CAGE centre. Theme 3 of CAGE is led by the co-ordinator of EBERG and has a special focus on subjective wellbeing.
People
Academics
Academics associated with the Reseach Group Name research group are:
Events
DR@W Forum (Hybrid Session): Sebastian Gluth (Hamburg)
Humans are required to find a suitable trade-off between making informed decisions on the one hand and limiting invested resources such as time and effort on the other hand. In this talk, I will present empirical work on the interaction between attention allocation and preference formation, suggesting that humans balance accuracy and effort by searching systematically for relevant information in an efficient and goal-directed, but not strictly optimal manner. Based on this notion, I will then present a Bayesian cognitive model of information search in multi-attribute decisions. The core element of this model is a transition rule, according to which an attribute is most likely to be attended next if it is expected to reveal decisive information in favour of its associated option. I will show that the model accounts for a rich body of empirical findings on attention-choice interactions in both binary and multi-alternative decisions and that simpler transition rules fail to capture these findings.
Meeting ID: 946 8150 5274
Passcode: 006159