ECON 3750 - Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Goals: To broaden the students’ understanding of economic theory by incorporating knowledge from other social sciences and by expanding traditional economic models to better understand and predict human behavior.

Content: Evidence suggests that human beings often do not behave according to the strict rational-actor assumptions inherent in traditional economic theory. This new and growing field of economics seeks to improve our ability to predict and understand phenomena including altruism, trust, reciprocity, and loss-aversion. The course will incorporate economics experiments and game theory methods to examine human behavior. These concepts will be applied to a wide range of contexts, from consumer or investor behavior to health care, dating, and procrastination.

Taught: Alternate years

Prerequisites: ECON 1310; ECON 1320; and Statistics (QMBE 1310, or PSY 1340, or MATH 1200); grade of C- or better required for all courses, or consent of the instructor

Credits: 4