Research paper (about 8 pages)

How can we get people to act the way we want?  We want them to recycle, eat healthier food, save more for retirement, vote in the elections, study harder, put in their best effort at work. How can a company sell more without spending more on marketing? Behavioral economics provides insights. You, me, a manager, and the government – on all levels we can use incentives to nudge people into making the right choices, and we can appeal to emotions to trick people into making the right choices.

The goal of this research project is to examine deeper one of the topics that captured your attention during this course, and to collect most recent evidence on the topic. Think of your topic in the form of a research question. For example: Are there gender differences in making financial decisions? How can the government use nudges to solve a specific problem? How can a manager use incentives to motivate workers in your industry? How can a teacher use incentives to get students to study more? Does happiness increase with income? Is there a particular behavioral puzzle that you observe around you and wish to explore in depth? Links and books below discuss applications of behavioral economics, they can help you develop your research question. You may also go back and re-watch some of the videos under course modules.

An excellent paper should include at least 2 references to recent papers written by economists. To find them, you can search online or use JSTOR article database on ESC library site. Within JSTOR choose advanced search, ‘Economics’ journals, year 2015-present, and enter your keywords in abstract. For best results select articles that offer experimental evidence, because experiments are the main tool of behavioral economics research. You may want to use ‘experiment’ as a keyword in article’s abstract.  Be sure to include proper references at the end of your paper.

Links and books to help you start your research

• Why women prefer male bosses – atlantic, gender aspects of decisions
• Mind, society and behavior – BE can help design policies for developing countries
• Guide to Behavioral Economics  – cutting edge research, examples
• Behavioral topics on lemonade.com
• Evolutionary psychology of mating – podcast
• The Psychology of Everything by Paul Bloom (Yale)
• If You’re So Free, Why Do You Follow Others?  Nicholas Christakis (Harvard)
• Kanneman’s lectures on thinking about thinking – edge
• Behavioral Economics in Action – edx course
• The Science of Everyday Thinking – edx course
• Behavioral econ and management – Deloitt
• Ariely: How equal do we want the world to be? – ted
• Policy and choice – behavioral econ for public finance
• Mean Genes by Burnham & Phelan, find chapters here – evolutionary origins of behavior
• ‘The Happy Danes’ – what makes Denmark the happiest country in the world?
• Job satisfaction report – some aspects of job satisfaction
• Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs memory – ted
• How motivation is driven by purpose – video – does money matter?
• Behavioral Econ and Psychology of Incentives – pdf
• Pink: The puzzle of motivation – ted
• Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work? – ted
• Mullainathan: Solving social problems with a nudge – TED
• Why ‘nudges’ may not work – the Atlantic
• Thailer and Varian’s talk on BE – 1h video, examples of nudges
• Policy and choice: public finance through BE – Brookings book
• The business of BE – forbes, applications to health and charitable giving
• What happened after Zappos eliminated bosses? – the atlantic
• Congo dandies: living in poverty and spending a fortune – irrational behavior?
• Upside of Irrationality Ch4: The Not-Invented-Here Bias – Ariely
• Why we should use behavioral econ to design technology that does not kill us – singularity
• Film with Ariely -youtube

• Jonah Berger, Invisible Influences 
• Uri Gneezy and John List, The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life
• Brian Wansink,  Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life
• Paul Dolan, Happiness by Design: Change What You Do, Not How You Think
• Richard Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
• Dan Ariely, Irrationally Yours: On Missing Socks, Pickup Lines, and Other Existential Puzzles

• Gary Belsky,  Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them: Lessons From The New Science Of Behavioral Economics.

• Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational
• Dan Ariely, The Upside of Irrationality
• Dan Ariely, Honest Truth about dishonesty
• Kahneman, Thinking fast and slow  and Video interview related to the book
• Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
• David Spiegelhalte and Michael Blastland, The Norm Chronicles
• Gerd Gigerenzer, Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions
• Gerd Gigerenzer, Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious