Luca Anderlini, Econ 4452, Behavioral Economics, Spring 2025

Thursdays 9.30am-12.00pm, Reiss 283

TA: TBA. TA Office Hours: TBA. Professor Office Hours: Thursdays 3.00-4.00pm or by appointment Luca.Anderlini@georgetown.edu.

This class has ECON 2101 or ECON 2103 as a prerequisite. There is NO TEXTBOOK for this class. You will be assigned readings as we go along.

Readings will be mostly journal articles available via Jstor. The links will work directly if you are accessing the web from any connection provided by Georgetown University. If you are accessing the web from anywhere else, you will need go via a proxy service provided by Georgetown University’s Library. These modes of access require your GU Netid credentials.

Some preliminary readings are as follows. A survey of the field by Colin Camerer and George Lowenstein. A (skeptical) short book by David Levine. Another survey of the field by Matt Rabin. These readings will give you a fairly good idea of topics to be covered. Among others these will include: Endowment Effects, Hyperbolic Discounting, Preference for Fairness and Herd Behavior.

Your final grade will be based on two Mid-Term Examinations (25% each) and a final exam (50%).

The schedule of examinations is as follows. First Mid-Term Examination: Thursday February 6th, in class. Second Mid-Term Examination: Thursday March 20th, in class. Final Examination: TBA, and in any case always double-check with the Registrar’s website.

Among other topics, there will be extensive treatment of Endowment Effects, Hyperbolic Discounting, Preferences for Fairness, and Herding Behavior.

Last, but NOT LEAST, a word of caution about MATH. This Class DOES involve some math. The math we will use is NOT hard. Some calculus, a lot of diagrams, and some more specialized stuff that we will pick up as we go along. However, if you really do not like math, this is not a class for you.

Instructional Continuity: If an announcement of inclement weather is made, please check my Bluesky feed @anderlini.bsky.social between 8.00 and 8.30am. Instructions, materials, links and so on will be distributed that way.