Undergraduate Teaching

I currently teach ECON3010. This course is optional, and primarily intended for students interested to learn more about economic theory.  The course aims to give an introduction to a branch of microeconomics called information design. For most of you, this topic will be new, so let me briefly explain what the subject matter is. 

There are three broad ways in which to affect individual behavior. The most obvious one, perhaps, is to dictate the  things that people can  and cannot do. For example, a government that wants to reduce carbon emissions could impose production  quotas on  firms. A second  way of affecting individual behavior is to use monetary transfers. In the context of the previous example, the government could for instance impose a tax on firms' carbon emissions.  Undergraduate Economics traditionally focuses on the former two ways of affecting individual behavior. Yet there is a natural third way, which consists in manipulating what people know and don't know. In the context of the previous example, the government could for instance devote resources to inform consumers about different products' environmental impact.  This  "third way" is the topic of the field known as information design: information design is the study of information as a tool  for influencing people's behavior and/or conducting economic policy.