Prof. Daniel Sgroi

Deputy Head of Department, Director of Research and Professor of Economics

Department of Economics, University of Warwick

Contact Details

• Address: Dept. of Economics, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.

• Warwick website: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/dsgroi

• Personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/daniel-sgroi/home

• Email: daniel.sgroi@warwick.ac.uk

• Telephone: +44 (0)24 76575557

Fields of Specialization

• Primary: Experimental & Behavioural Economics

• Secondary: Behavioural Data Science, Subjective Wellbeing, Learning & Beliefs

Current Positions

• Deputy Head of Dept. & Director of Research, Econ. Dept., University of Warwick (2025-).

• Professor of Economics, Econ. Dept., University of Warwick (2019-).

• Affiliated Researcher, Behavioural Data Science Programme, Alan Turing Institute (2019-).

• Research Fellow, IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn (2018-).

• Panel Member, World Wellbeing Panel, CEP, LSE (2018-).

• Fellow, CRETA Centre, University of Warwick (2009-).

Former Positions

• Coordinator, Experimental & Behavioural Econ. Research Group, Econ. Dept., Warwick (2019-25).

• Chair of the Behaviour Spotlight, Warwick (2024)

• Academic Lead, Behaviour, Brain & Society Global Research Priority, Warwick (2020-23).

• Associate Member, Nuffield College, University of Oxford (2017-21).

• Research Theme Leader (Subjective Wellbeing & Economic Behaviour), ESRC CAGE Centre, Warwick (2015-20).

• Associate Professor of Economics, Econ. Dept., University of Warwick (2012-19)

• External Examiner, Faculty of Economics & Politics, University of Cambridge (2016-18).

• Visiting Professor, Centre for Experimental Social Science (CESS), Nuffield College, Oxford (2016-17).

• Research Associate, Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, Warwick (2011-14).

• Visiting Professor, Economics Department, University College London (2011)

• Leverhulme Assistant Professor of Industry & Organisation, Econ. Dept., Warwick (2007-12).

• Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge (2005-7).

• Fellow, Lecturer & Director of Studies in Economics, Churchill College, Cambridge (2002-7).

• Research Associate, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge (2002-5).

• AEA Technology Junior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge (2000-2).

• College Lecturer at Oxford: Magdalen (1998-2000), St. Hugh’s (1998-99) & St. Catherine’s (1997-98).

• Departmental Teaching Associate, Economics Department, University of Oxford (1998-2000).

• Economic Consultant, Oxford Economic Research Associates (OXERA) (1995-96).

• Research Assistant, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London (1994).

Education

• DPhil in Economics, University of Oxford (Nuffield College, 1998-2001). Topic: Theories of Learning in Economics. Advisors: Paul Klemperer (university), Hyun Shin (college).

• MPhil in Economics, University of Oxford (Nuffield College, 1996-98). MA (Nuffield College, 2001).

• Oxford Awards/Prizes:  George Webb Medley Prize proxima accesserunt (1997); ESRC Postgraduate Studentship (1996-2000).

• BA (Hons) in Economics (Double First), University of Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College, 1992-1995). MA (Fitzwilliam College, 2000). PhD (Churchill College, by incorporation, 2004).

• Cambridge Awards/Prizes: University of Cambridge Wrenbury Scholarship (1995); Fitzwilliam College Senior Business Scholarship (1995); 1912 Scholarship (1993, 1994); Fitzwilliam College Prize in Economics (1993, 1995); Foundation Essay Prize (1994).

Teaching

• Teaching: I teach applied microeconomics and experimental economics and supervise PhDs and MSc/MRes dissertations.

• PhD Supervision: 8 current students at Warwick; 15 completed at Warwick and 1 completed at Cambridge; Examinations: 10 (6 Warwick, 1 UCL, 1 Cambridge, 2 Oxford).

• Teaching Prizes: At Warwick: Overall Teaching Excellence Award and special recognition in the Student Experience Award (2015-16); Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence (Commendation), awarded by the University of Warwick (2015); Best Second Year Undergraduate Lecturer Award (2013-14); Best First Year Undergraduate Lecturer Award (2012-13); Commendation for Excellence in Teaching Economics (2011-12); top-rated course and evaluated as Most Effective Lecturer in the dept. numerous times. At Oxford: Apgar Teaching Prize (Magdalen College, 2000).

Research Grants & Fellowships

• ESRC Centre Grant (£3.5million in 2015 & £2million in 2020): Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) - As Research Theme Leader of one of the 4 themes I was part of the team that prepared and won both bids totalling to £5.5million in value. I managed a part of the grant related to work in behavioural economics and subjective wellbeing from 2015-2020.

• Leverhulme Trust (£1.1million): Leverhulme Posts in Industry and Organisation. Funded part of my salary from 2007-12.

• European Union FP6 “Broadband for All” Programme (€660,000, 2004-06): Competition, Contents and Broadband for the Internet in Europe. With Emanuele Giovannetti. Funded part of my salary from 2004-6.

• ESRC World Economy and Finance Programme (£90,000, 2005-08): Herding in Financial Markets. With Hamid Sabourian and Andreas Park. Funded my work related to financial herding.

• AEA Technology (£52,000, 2000-02): AEA Technology Research Fellowship at Churchill College. Funded part of my salary from 2000-02.

• Misc. small grants: Oxford University John Fell Fund (£7,500, 2019-20): Ignoring Good Advice with David Ronayne;  Mind & Life European Varela Research Award (17,500 euros, 2019-20): Mindfulness The Economics of Mindfulness with Elliot Ash, Anthony Tuckwell and Shi Zhuo; Nuffield College, Oxford (£5,000, 2017-18): Ignoring Good Advice with David Ronayne; CAGE (£5,000, 2017-18): Theory of Mind and Strategic Decision-Making with Neha Bose; CAGE (£10,000, 2011-12): Explaining Attitudes towards Redistribution with Sharun Mukand and Anandi Mani; Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance (£7,000, 2006-08): Herding in Financial Markets: An Experimental Test with Andreas Park.

Publications

• The Effect of Self-Awareness and Competition on Dishonesty, forthcoming in  Behavioural Public Policy, with Ceren Bengu Cibik.

• Luck Framing Supports the Avoidance of Collective Disastergs when Inequalities in Vulnerability Exit, forthcoming in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, with Eugene Malthouse, Charlie Pilgrim and Thomas Hills.

• The Meritocratic Illusion: Inequality and the Cognitive Basis for Redistribution, forthcoming in Oxford Economic Papers, with Arthur Blouin, Anandi Mani and Sharun Mukand.

• A Field Study of Donor Behaviour in the Iranian Kidney Market, European Economic Review 170: 104887, November 2024, with Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi

• When Fairness is Not Enough: The Disproportionate Contributions of the Poor in a Collective Action Problem, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 152(11): 3229–3242, 2023 with Eugene Malthouse, Charlie Pilgrim and Thomas Hills.

• Happiness and Productivity in the Workplace, December 2023, Oxford Encyclopaedia of Economics and Finance, with Mahnaz Nazneen.

• Mindfulness Reduces Information Avoidance, Economics Letters, 224: 110997, 2023, with Elliot Ash, Anthony Tuckwell and Shi Zhuo.

• Small Talk and Theory of Mind in Strategic Decision-Making, September 2, PLOS ONE, 2022, with Neha Bose.

• Measuring National Mood with Music: Using Machine Learning to Construct a Measure of National Valence from Audio Data, Behavior Research Methods, February 2022, with Emmanouil Benetos, Alessandro Ragano and Anthony Tuckwell.

• The Relationship between Cognitive Ability and Risk Preferences in a Developing Nation: Findings from the Field, Economics Letters, 216: 110576, 2022, with Ali Moghaddasi Kelishomi.

• Evaluating the Sunk Cost Effect, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 186: 318-327, 2021, with David Ronayne and Anthony Tuckwell.

• How Susceptible are you to the Sunk Cost Fallacy? Harvard Business Review, July 15 2021, with David Ronayne & Anthony Tuckwell.

• Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using Millions of Digitized Books, Nature: Human Behaviour, 15 October 2019, with Thomas Hills, Eugenio Proto and Chanuki Seresinhe.

• Happiness, Cooperation and Language, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2019, Volume 168, Pages 209-228, with Eugenio Proto and Mahnaz Nazneen.

• On the Motivations for the Dual Use of Electronic and Traditional Cigarettes, Applied Economics Letters, Volume 25, Issue 12, Pages 830-834, 2018, with David Ronayne.

• Biased Beliefs and Imperfect Information. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 136, Pages 186-202, 2017, with Eugenio Proto.

• Laboratory Evidence for Emotional Externalities: An Essay in Honor of EJ Mishan, Singapore Economic Review, Volume 61, Issue 3 (Special Issue in honour of EJ Mishan), 2016, with Eugenio Proto, Andrew Oswald and Alex Dobson.

• Happiness and Productivity, Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 33, Issue 4, pages: 789-822, 2015 (lead article), with Andrew Oswald and Eugenio Proto.

• How Should Peer Review Panels Behave? Economic Journal, Volume 123, Issue 570, pages 255-278, 2013, with Andrew Oswald.

• Herding, Contrarianism and Delay in Financial Market Trading, European Economic Review, Volume 56, Pages 1020-1037, 2012, with Andreas Park.

• The Optimal Choice of Pre-Launch Reviewer, Journal of Economic Theory, Volume 147, Issue 3, pages 1247-1260, 2012, with David Gill.

• Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among Young People with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental and Econometric Approach, Experimental Economics, Volume 15, Issue 1, pages 1-23, 2012 (lead article), with Andrew Oswald and Eugenio Proto.

• Learning to Play 3×3 Games: Neural Networks as Bounded-Rational Players, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Volume 69, Issue 1, pages 27-38, 2009, with Daniel J. Zizzo.

• Sequential Decisions with Tests, Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 63, Issue 2, pages 663-678, 2008, with David Gill.

• Social Network Theory, Broadband and the Future of the World Wide Web, Telecommunications Policy, Volume 32 (Special Issue on Competition and Interconnection on the Internet), pages 62-84, 2008.

• Neural Networks and Bounded Rationality, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 375, Issue 2, Article 33, 717-725, 2007, with Daniel J. Zizzo.

• A Power Law Distribution for Tenure Lengths of Sports Managers, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 370, Issue 2, Article 44, pages 697-703, 2006, with Toke Aidt, Bernard Leong and William Saslaw.

• Sequential Decision Making and Asymmetric Equilibria: An Application to Takeovers, The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, Volume 4, Issue 1 (Topics), Article 11, pages 1-8, 2004, with David Gill.

• The Right Choice at the Right Time: A Herding Experiment in Endogenous Time, Experimental Economics, Volume 6, Issue 2, pages 159-180, 2003.

• Irreversible Investment and the Value of Information Gathering, Economics Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 21, pages 1-12, 2003.

• Using Neural Networks to Model Bounded Rationality in Interactive Decision-Making, Greek Economic Review, Volume 22 (Special Issue on Transfer of Knowledge in Economic Decision-Making), Issue 2, pages 113-132, 2003. Reprinted in Zizzo DJ (Ed.) Transfer of Knowledge in Economic Decision-Making, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 128-147, 2005.

• Optimizing Information in the Herd: Guinea Pigs, Profits and Welfare, Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 39, Issue 1, pages 137-166, 2002.

• For papers under revision at journals and working papers, please see my website.

Presentations

• International conferences (selected): Economic History Society (Plenary Lecture: “Measuring National Wellbeing in the Past”, 2023); Royal Economic Society Conference (Warwick, 2019, Sussex, 2018, Sussex 2016, Surrey 2009); Econometric Society European Meetings (Cologne, 2018); European Economic Association Annual Congress (Cologne, 2018, Geneva 2016, Vienna 2006); Warwick Economics Summit (Warwick 2016); World Congress of the Game Theory Society (Evanston 2008, Marseilles 2004, Bilbao 2000); European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (Toulouse 2008); Econometric Society World Congress (London 2005); Spring Meeting of Young Economists (Paris 2002, Copenhagen 2001, Amsterdam 1999).

• Workshops/one-off conferences (selected): Private vs. Public Solutions to Collective Action Problems (Venice 2023); CAGE Workshop of the Use of Language in Economics and the Social Sciences (2019), Warwick Behavioural Science Summit (2019), CAGE Behavioural Science Summer School (Warwick 2016); Conference in Honour of Peter Hammond (Warwick 2010); Workshop on Information Externalities, Social Learning and Financial Markets (Cambridge 2008); University of Birmingham: “Summer in Birmingham” Economic Theory Event (Birmingham 2008); ESRC World Economy and Finance Workshop (Warwick 2007); Workshop on Competition, Contents, Broadband and the Internet (Cambridge 2005).

• Invited seminars (selected): University of Loughborough (2022), Purdue University (2020), Leicester Business School (2020), University of East Anglia: School of Economics (2019, 2018, 2017, 2007), University of Birmingham, Social Preference Workshop (2018); London School of Economics: OWL Economic History group (2017), CEP Wellbeing Seminar (2017); Nuffield College, University of Oxford: Centre for Experimental Social Science (2016); Paris School of Economics (2014); University of Bath: Economics Department (2014); University of Glasgow: Adam Smith Business School (2013); University of Birmingham: Economics Department (2013); University of Leicester: Economics Department (2013); London School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance (2011), Imperial College, London, Complexity & Networks Group (2011); University of Southampton: Economics Division (2008); Temple University: Fox School of Business (2007); State University of New York at Binghamton: Economics Department (2007); Haverford College: Economics Department (2007); University of Warwick: Economics Department (2007), CRETA (2008), Marie Curie Workshop (2009), Decision Research at Warwick Forum (2009, 2010, 2019); University of Exeter: School of Business and Economics (2006, 2007); University of Cambridge: Faculty of Economics (2001, 2002, 2005), Judge Business School (2006); Birkbeck College, University of London: School of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics (2004); University of Essex: Economics Department (2003); University of Helsinki: Economics Department (2001); Royal Holloway College, University of London: Economics Department (1999); University of Oxford: St. John’s College (1999), Economics Department (1999, 2000).

• Invited seminars and panels (outside academia): Workshop on Text Analysis in Economics and the Social Sciences at the Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science at the University of East Anglia (keynote address, 2020), Warwick Life Sciences (panel on Aging and Longevity, 2018); Office of National Statistics (plenary address, 2017); Social Market Foundation/British Academy (panel on Understanding Happiness, 2017); Warwick Economics Summit (plenary address, 2016); Government Economic Service at the Treasury (invited seminars, 2013, 2015); Social Market Foundation (public event on Happiness & Productivity, 2015); The Office of Fair Trading (invited seminar, 2009); AEA Technology plc (invited seminars, 2000, 2001).

Media

• Over 500 media citations to my work including front page coverage in the Times and Guardian, a cover story in the Economist and numerous interviews for the Observer, Telegraph, Forbes, Huffington Post, Fortune, Business Insider, Euronews, etc.

• Extensive interviews by national and local radio stations (in the UK, Europe, North America, etc.) including multiple interviews on BBC Radio 4, Talk Radio, Radio 5, etc. on topics such as the economics of happiness, productivity in the workplace and nudge theory.

• Articles written for the Times Higher, The Independent, VoxEU and The Conversation.

• Presented a short documentary for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on historical happiness and my work has been the subject of an episode of BBC Radio 5’s The Naked Scientist.

Professional Activities

• Editorial board member of the Review of Economics and Political Science.

• Journal referee: Adaptive Behavior, American Economic Review, B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, Econometrica, Economica, Economic Inquiry, Economic Journal, Economics Bulletin, European Economic Review, Experimental Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, Greek Economic Review, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, International Journal of Game Theory, IZA World of Labor, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Cultural Economics, Journal of Behavioral & Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Journal of Economic Interaction & Coordination, Journal of Economic Psychology, Journal of Economic Surveys, Journal of the European Economic Association, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Public Economic Theory, Oxford Economic Papers, PLOS ONE, Quarterly Journal of Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, Research in Economics, Review of Behavioral Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Telecommunications Policy, Theoretical Economics, Theory and Decision.

• Conference organizer: CAGE Workshop of the Use of Language in Economics and the Social Sciences (2019), Royal Economic Society Conference (Programme Committee: 2016-19); Foundations of Utility and Risk (Advisory Board: Warwick 2016), CAGE Behavioural Science Summer School (Organiser: Warwick 2016); Workshop on Information Externalities, Social Learning and Financial Markets (Co-organiser: Cambridge 2008); Workshop on Competition, Contents, Broadband and the Internet (Co-organiser: Cambridge 2005); Spring Meeting of Young Economists (Programme Committee & local Organization Committee: Oxford 2000; Programme Committee: Paris 2002, Copenhagen 2001).

University Administration

• University of Warwick. Department: Senior Management Team (2022-); Undergraduate Admissions Co-ordinator (2008-); Leader of the Industrial Economics Degree Course (2007-09); Undergraduate Management Committee (2007-09); Undergraduate Exam Board (2007-09); Management Committee of the Economic Research Institute (2007-08). University: Panel for the Committee of the Admission of Students to Courses of Study (2014-16).

• University of Cambridge. Faculty: MPhil/Diploma Examiners’ Committee (2001-04); Part IIB Examiners’ Committee (2003-04); Library Committee (2003-04); Part IIA Examiners’ Committee (2002-03). Churchill College: Senior Tutor Appointment Committee (2006-07); Tutorial Appointments Committee (2003-07); Finance Committee (2002-06); Inspector of Accounts (2004-05); Industrial Advisers Committee (2003-04).

• Centre for Experimental Social Science (CESS), Nuffield College, University of Oxford: External Ethical Review Committee (2016-).