Welcome
The EBDM seminar presents behavioural economics and decision-making research to academic community of London. Seminars (except where noted) are Tuesday evenings at 17:30 and are open to the public.
EBDM Seminar: Glenn Harrison presents ‘Neuroeconomics: A Critical Reconsideration’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: ‘Neuroeconomics: A Critical Reconsideration’ by Glenn Harrison (University of Central Florida)
Tuesday May 13, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School seminar room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
Understanding more about how the brain functions should help us understand economic behaviour. But some would have us believe that it has done this already, and that insights from neuroscience have already provided insights in economics that we would not otherwise have. Much of this is just academic marketing hype, and to get down to substantive issues we need to identify that fluff for what it is. After we clear away the distractions, what is left? The answer is that a lot is left, but it is still all potential. That is not a bad thing, or a reason to stop the effort, but it does point to the need for a serious reconsideration of what neuroeconomics is and what passes for explanation in this literature. I argue that neuroeconomics can be a valuable field, but not the way it is being developed and “sold” now. The same is true more generally of behavioural economics, which shares many of the methodological flaws of neuroeconomics.
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To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Guillaume Hollard presents ‘Individual sensitivity to framing effects’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: ‘Individual sensitivity to framing effects’ by Guillaume Hollard (Paris School of Economics-CNRS)
Tuesday May 6, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School seminar room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
Surveys are sometimes viewed with suspicion when used to provide economic values, since they have been proved to be sensitive to framing effects. However, the extent to which those effects may vary between individuals has received little attention. Are some individuals less sensitive to framing effects than others ? How to detect them ? These are the questions addressed in this paper. We use the theory of social representation to assign to each individual a new variable that is proved to be a proxy for the individual’s sensitivity to framing effects. We examine two framing effects which are known to have a significant effect on valuation, namely, starting-point bias and willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept divergence. It is proved that the representation variable allows researchers to gather new and relevant information to limit the impact of framing effects.
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Ignacio Palacios-Huerta presents ‘Field Centipedes’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: “Field Centipedes” by Ignacio Palacios-Huerta (LSE)
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School seminar room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
We conduct a field experiment in which highly-ranked chess players play the centipede game in a natural setting. In the experiment two players alternately are faced with the decision of either taking an exponentially growing pile of money and ending the game, or letting the other player make the decision. The player who decides to stop the game takes the larger portion of the pile, and the other player gets the remaining amount. All standard equilibrium concepts dictate that the player who decides first must stop the game immediately. There is vast experimental evidence, however, that this rarely occurs. Contrary to this evidence our results show that 69% of chess players stop the game immediately. When we restrict attention to chess Grandmasters this percentage escalates to 100%.
Related Reading
http://http//volij.co.il/publications/papers/CENTIPEDE.pdf
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Luis Rayo presents “Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness”
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: “Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness” by Luis Rayo (University of Chicago)
Tuesday April 15, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School seminar room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
We model happiness as a measurement tool used to rank alternative actions. Evolution favors a happiness function that measures the individual’s success in relative terms. The optimal function is based on a time-varying reference point—or performance benchmark—that is updated over time in a statistically optimal way in order to match the individual’s potential. Habits and peer comparisons arise as special cases of such an updating process. This updating also results in a volatile level of happiness that continuously reverts to its long-term mean. Throughout, we draw a parallel with a problem of optimal incentives, which allows us to apply statistical insights from agency theory to the study of happiness.
Related Reading
Rayo, Luis and Gary S. Becker (2007) Evolutionary Efficiency and Happiness. Journal of Political Economy, 115(2), 302-337.
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Ed Diener presents ‘National Accounts of Well-Being, and Findings from the Gallup World Poll’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: “National Accounts of Well-Being, and Findings from the Gallup World Poll” by Ed Diener (University of Illinois)
Tuesday April 8, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
Diener and Seligman (2004) proposed that accounts of well-being, including life satisfaction and happiness, be established to help policy makers. The arguments in favor of this proposal are reviewed, and the objections are answered. In terms of the advantages of these measures, we now have accumulating evidence that happy people live longer and healthier, have better social relationships, are better employees and earn higher incomes, and are better citizens (e.g., doing more volunteer work and having more pro-peace attitudes). It is shown that societal circumstances have much to do with well-being, and that feelings of well-being are not simply dependent on individual personality. Furthermore, people do not adapt completely to good and bad conditions, as is asserted in the “happy slave” critique. Several of the benefits of well-being measures for policy are considered, and how these measures complement traditional economic accounts is outlined. Data from the Gallup World Poll, representing the population of the entire globe, are presented to illustrate the types of information that can be obtained from accounts of well-being. In this groundbreaking survey global evaluations of well-being, appear to be heavily weighted by income and measures of positive and negative affect are most responsive to social conditions.
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Bruno Frey presents “What can we learn from Happiness Research for Policy?”
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: “What can we learn from happiness research for policy?” by Bruno Frey (Zurich)
Tuesday April 1, 2008
Location: London Business School room LT3
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
To follow…
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Yael Grushka-Cockayne presents ‘The similarity heuristic’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: The similarity heuristic by Yael Grushka-Cockayne (LBS)
Tuesday March 11, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Rd, room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
Decision makers are often called on to make snap judgments using fast - and - frugal decision rules called cognitive heuristics. Although early research into cognitive heuristics emphasized their limitations, more recent research has focused on their high level of accuracy. In this paper we investigate the performance a subset of the representativeness heuristic which we call the similarity heuristic. Decision makers who use it judge the likelihood that an instance is a member of one category rather than another by the degree to which it is similar to others in that category. We provide a mathematical model of the heuristic and test it experimentally in a trinomial environment. The similarity heuristic turns out to be a reliable and accurate choice rule and both choice and response time data suggest it is also how choices are made.
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Satoshi Kanazawa presents ‘The nature and evolutionary limitations of the human brain’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: The nature and evolutionary limitations of the human brain by Satoshi Kanazawa (LSE)
Tuesday March 4, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Rd, room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
As an organ adapted to its evolutionary environment, the human brain may have difficulty comprehending and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment. At the same time, an evolutionary psychological theory of the evolution of general intelligence proposes that general intelligence may have evolved as a domain-specific adaptation to solve evolutionarily novel problems. The logical conjunction of these two separate lines of research leads to the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, which suggests that more intelligent individuals may be better able to comprehend and deal with evolutionarily novel entities and situations than less intelligent individuals, but general intelligence may have no effect on comprehending and dealing with evolutionarily familiar entities and situations. The Hypothesis can potentially explain: 1) why less intelligent individuals derive more satisfaction from watching TV than more intelligent individuals; 2) why less intelligent individuals have more children than more intelligent individuals, even though they don’t want to; 3) why more intelligent individuals live longer and stay healthier than less intelligent individuals; 4) why more intelligent individuals are more likely to be liberal and atheist; 5) why more intelligent men (but not more intelligent women) are more monogamous; 6) why more intelligent individuals prefer instrumental music more than less intelligent individuals, when general intelligence has no effect on the preference for vocal music; and 7) why more intelligent individuals are more likely to defect in one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma games than less intelligent individuals.
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
EBDM Seminar: Wolfram Schultz presents ‘Behavioral theories and the neurophysiology of reward’
The Economics of Behaviour and Decision-Making Seminar invites you to: Behavioral theories and the neurophysiology of reward by Wolfram Schultz (Cambridge)
Tuesday February 26, 2008
Location: Westminster Business School, 35 Marylebone Rd, room MR2
Time: 17h30-19h
Abstract
The functions of rewards are based primarily on their effects on behavior and are less directly governed by the physics and chemistry of input events as in sensory systems. Therefore, the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying reward functions requires behavioral theories that can conceptualize the different effects of rewards on behavior. The scientific investigation of behavioral processes by animal learning theory and economic utility theory has produced a theoretical framework that can help to elucidate the neural correlates for reward functions in learning, goal-directed approach behavior, and decision making under uncertainty. Individual neurons can be studied in the reward systems of the brain, including dopamine neurons, orbitofrontal cortex, and striatum. The neural activity can be related to basic theoretical terms of reward and uncertainty, such as contiguity, contingency, prediction error, magnitude, probability, expected value, and variance.
Related Manuscript: Behavioral Theories and the Neurophysiology of reward
How To Join The Email List
To subscribe to the seminar series email list, please visit http://tinyurl.com/yvw2sr to opt in. You can easily unsubscribe anytime. Please pass this message on to those who may be interested in joining the email list.
The full schedule of talks at the Economics of Behaviour and Decision Making seminar series is maintained at http://www.decisionresearchlab.com/ebdm/
Sincerely,
Lionel Page (Westminster Business School)
Dan Goldstein (London Business School)
A Related Talk Series in London
If you like decision-making, you will like the London Judgment and Decision Making Group Seminar.
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