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 - Eric Johnson (Columbia Business School)
Some behavioral research aims to affect policy and management practice with quickly applied insights. To do this, research findings should generalize from the settings of the original study to applications. However, research results reflect both the manipulation of interest as well as a myriad of unobserved sources of heterogeneity. To generalize, we need to understand this heterogeneity. We re-analyze existing data and simulations to propose a toolbox to help researchers leverage heterogeneity in the service of generalization. The five tools that consumer researchers might use to increase the generalizability of their findings are: 1) Measure proximal moderators that describe respondents' interaction with the setting. 2) Exploit purposive variation to increase variation on relevant moderators and settings. 3) Measure manipulation intensity and measurement error. 4) Use survey para-data to estimate moderators. 5) Harness proximal moderators and purposive variation to generalize effect sizes. We suggest that our toolbox can help advance our field towards higher practical impact by moving beyond understanding what works, to understanding what works when, where and why.