Behavioral Political Economics

Topics: This course offers a new perspective on Political Economics by informing the latter field with insights from Behavioral Economics. Political Economics traditionally analyses social choice, voting, lobbying, political institutions and government behavior under standard assumptions. Behavioral Economics, by contrast, identifies open puzzles in Political Economics and explains them with the help of insights from Behavioral Economics, like bounded rationality (illusion of control, incorrect probability judgments, limited memory etc.) and social and / or procedural preferences. These new theories are tested in the lab.

Method: Students present and discuss recent research in Behavioral Political Economics in class and provide a “referee report” on a related paper.

Aim: The goal of this course is twofold. First, students will become “competent consumers” of the literature in Behavioral Economics. Second, they will be enabled to develop a research project in this field that may become part of their dissertation.

Organization: A reading list will be provided by the beginning of October. In the first session on class, I will shortly present the papers, and the students will choose what to present and what paper to write a report on. Then, we will meet every other week for the presentation and discussion of the literature.

Requirements: PhD Students who want to participate must have taken some course in Behavioral or Experimental Economics. The class is open to advanced Master students.