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): Daniel Bennett (Monash)
Contemporary sports-betting products offer a raft of novel in-play betting features designed to incentivise customer engagement. Among these, one prominent feature available on most interactive betting platforms is ‘cash out’. The cash-out feature allows customers who have wagered on an event to forgo their stake in the event prior to its conclusion in exchange for a (discounted) early payout. In spite of its ubiquity in the world of sports betting, it remains unknown how and why bettors use this feature, as well as whether the mere availability of a cash-out option affects betting behaviour. In this talk I will report the results of several recent experiments using a novel experimental gambling task in which participants were offered the option to cash out of their risky bets. Briefly, results suggest (a) that the availability of a cash-out option may incentivise participants to place larger wagers, and (b) that individual differences in use of the cash-out feature are associated with inter-individual differences in self-reported impulsivity in unexpected ways. Although we focus on the application of these findings to gambling, they also have bearing on a broader class of financial decisions, namely those in which the owner of a risky asset must weigh the guaranteed immediate returns of selling the asset against the potential costs and benefits of retaining it into the future.
Meeting ID: 916 8441 3354
Passcode: 500912