Catalog

Psychology and Economics

Economics MIT CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 24 lectures

Psychology and Economics (aka Behavioral Economics) is a growing subfield of economics that incorporates insights from psychology and other social sciences into economics. This course covers recent advances in behavioral economics by reviewing some of the assumptions made in mainstream economic models, and by discussing how human behavior systematically departs from these assumptions. Applications will cover a wide range of fields, including labor and public economics, industrial organization, health economics, finance, and development economics.

Syllabus

  1. 1 Lecture 1: Introduction and Overview I
  2. 2 Lecture 2: Introduction and Overview II
  3. 3 Lecture 3: Time Preferences (Theory) I
  4. 4 Lecture 4: Time Preferences (Theory) II
  5. 5 Lecture 5: Time Preferences (Applications) I
  6. 6 Lecture 6: Time Preferences (Applications) II
  7. 7 Lecture 7: Risk Preferences I
  8. 8 Lecture 8: Risk Preferences II
  9. 9 Lecture 9: Reference-Dependent Preferences
  10. 10 Lecture 10: Social Preferences I
  11. 11 Lecture 11: Social Preferences II
  12. 12 Lecture 12: Social Preferences III
  13. 13 Lecture 13: Social Preferences IV
  14. 14 Mid-Term Review
  15. 15 Lecture 14: Limited Attention
  16. 16 Lecture 15: Utility from Beliefs; Learning I
  17. 17 Lecture 16: Utility from Beliefs; Learning II
  18. 18 Lecture 17: State-Dependent Preferences, Projection, and Attribution Bias
  19. 19 Lecture 18: Gender, Discrimination, and Identity
  20. 20 Lecture 19: Defaults, Nudges, and Frames
  21. 21 Lecture 20: Malleability and Inaccessibility of Preferences
  22. 22 Lecture 21: Poverty through the Lens of Psychology
  23. 23 Lecture 22: Happiness and Mental Health
  24. 24 Lecture 23: Policy with Behaviorial Agents

Course materials