Caspar Kaiser

I am an Assistant Professor with the Behavioural Science Group at Warwick Business School.  I am also a research fellow at Oxford University's Wellbeing Research Centre, a research affiliate at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and chair of the board of the Happier Lives Institute. 

So far, most of my research has focused on the measurement and determinants of human wellbeing.

Regarding measurement, I worked on improving the comparability of survey data on people’s feelings and analyse whether such data can measure welfare cardinally (e.g. see here, here, here). Concerning determinants, I worked on investigating how social comparisons and inequalities, particularly with respect to household incomes, shape people’s wellbeing (e.g. see here, here).

More recently, I have become increasingly concerned with AI alignment, sentience, and welfare. Specifically, I currently work  on a project using 'truth classifiers' (e.g. link), to investigate whether LLMs believe themselves to be sentient and to be moral patients. 

I hold a DPhil in Social Policy from Nuffield College and the Department of Social Policy & Intervention. Brian Nolan (INET, Oxford) and Maarten Vendrik (SBE, Maastricht) supervised my doctorate. Before joining Warwick,  I was a postdoc at Oxford University and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Tilburg University.