Behavioral Public Policy and Economics GmbH
Last week, we identified time-inconsistent decision making as the main reason for our chocolate issues. We will now look into it in a bit more detail.
Behavioral economists group people with respect to the extent of how much self-control problems they exhibit and their awareness of these problems.
“Oh no, I did it again. My chocolate supply vanished into thin air. Okay, okay, not into the air, but into my belly. I just don’t get it. When it comes to sweets, I just cannot control myself.
I’m not a fool, I do know that devouring an entire bar of chocolate a day isn’t good for me in the long run. Strangely enough though, this happens every time I buy some. Why on earth can I not stick to my plans and just eat two pieces a day?!
Seems like “future me’ is a different version of “present me’ and dislikes performing my initial plans. What’s wrong with me?’
Well, from a behavioral economist’s point of view, the diagnose is that you suffer from time-inconsistency and a projection bias. But you’re not alone. Time-inconsistency is very common among humans, and there are remedies to cure it.
Our affiliate Marcus Giamattei is appointed as Professor for Macroeconomics at the Bard College Berlin. Before joining the Bard College Berlin, Marcus was assistant professor at the University of Passau. He is affiliated with CeDEx at the University of Nottingham, UK, and has been a visiting researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Marcus developed ClassEx, a tool for interactive classroom and lab-in-the-field experiments with mobile devices and LIONESS Lab, a platform for online experiments. Those platforms enable instructors and researchers to use experiments outside of the conventional laboratory environment. ClassEx and LIONESS are used in over 50 countries around the world.
يسعدنا أن نتقدّم إليكم بأحر التهاني وأطيب الأماني بمناسبة حلول عيد الأضحى المبارك. وكل عام وأنتم وأحبتكم بخير وسعادة.
We are very pleased to extend to you our warmest congratulations and best wishes on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha. May you celebrate it every year with your loved ones being well and happy.
Image kindly provided by https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/kaaba-holy-symbolic-building-in-islam-vector-13906219
Are you currently pursuing a PhD or Master in Behavioral Economics and are you interested in applying behavioral insights in the field? Then get in touch with us: we are currently looking for behavioral freelancers and are interested in new research collaborations.
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Behavia’s academic incubator and alma mater Passau University has secured another top result in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) Ranking for 2019. Among the universities aged 50 or younger (‘Young University Ranking’) Passau came in 16th and in second place in Germany.
Find more information in the official press release.
For the 17th time, our affiliate Prof. Dr. Johann Graf Lambsdorff and his team are organizing the workshop “The Economics of Corruption”, at the University of Passau. This year’s workshop focusses on “Overcoming Behavioral Impediments to Honesty” and will be held from September 22-29, 2019.
The workshop provides graduate and PhD-students with experimental, behavioral and institutional tools for doing research on corruption and good governance. For further information and registration, please approach http://www.icgg.org.
Further reading on behavioral approaches to increase honesty and integrity:
Our Managing Director, Dr. Manuel Schubert, will give a talk on Behavioral Labor Market Insights at Passau University on 17/06/2019. During his presentation, Manuel will propose concepts on how to measure the root causes behind the employer-employee mismatch, on how to identify the drivers of employability and entrepreneurship and discuss actionable, small-scale interventions to cope with behavioral barriers in the labor market. Read More
Our directors Manuel and Julia just came back from a fantastic visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, giving a Masterclass in Behavioral Public Policy at the Ministry of Health. This week, Manuel is catching up on “Behavioral Economics and the Seven Deadly Sins”. More to come in June, then focusing on moral decay, procrastination and behavioral labor market insights.
