B1798 - BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS

Conoscenze e abilità da conseguire

At the end of the course students are able to manage analytical tools useful to understand and make decisions in conditions of imperfect and incomplete information, risk and uncertainty. Students learn how to deal with intertemporal choices, strategic interaction and the problems arising from information asymmetry and transaction costs

Contenuti

This course combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how consumer's behavior departs from full rationality and how this affects firms' strategies. In particular,  we will first show how behavioural biases entail some form of consumer inattention and/or some form of reference-dependance. Then, we use these concepts to study some of the topics related to firm strategies and pricing, that the companion course of Industrial Organization has studied through the lens of the mainstream economic theory.

 

More in detail, we will cover the following topics

1. Introduction to the concept of reference-dependance
   
   
2. Introduction to the concept of inattention
   
   
3. Behavioural industrial organization

•  Naive vs sophisticated consumers
  Economics of Hidden Prices
  Price Discrimination with Naive Consumers
  
  
• Perception Externalities
  Manipulating vs educating the consumer
  Consumer Attention: Salience and Limited attention
  
  
• Firms' strategies when consumers have behavioral biases
  Loss Aversion
  Conspicuous consumption

 

Testi/Bibliografia

Slides and other teaching materials will be made available on virtuale.unibo.it on weekly basis.

Textbook:

 Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Applications and Foundations, Volume 1, Edited by B. Douglas Bernheim, Stefano DellaVigna, David Laibson

Chapter 1: Reference-Dependent Preferences

Chapter 6: Behavioral Industrial Organization

Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Applications and Foundations, Volume 2, Edited by B. Douglas Bernheim, Stefano DellaVigna, David Laibson

Chapter 4: Behavioral Inattention

Other reading material will be provided during the classes

 

 

Metodi didattici

Lectures, teamworks

Modalità di verifica e valutazione dell'apprendimento

One written exam over the entire program, worth up to 20/30 points and consisting of multiple choice questions and a very short essay on a topic selected by the student between two or more proposals.

For attending students, the remaining 10/30 points are appointed based on the evaluation of in-class participation, teamworks and problem sets.

For non-attending students, the remaining 10/30 points are instead appointed based additional questions to address in a sort of extended version of the final written exam.


The grade is graduated as follows:
<18 failed
18-23 sufficient
24-27 good
28-30 very good
30 e lode excellent

Strumenti a supporto della didattica

Materials will be uploaded on the course page on the Moodle platform (http://virtuale.unibo.it)

Office hours: by appointment (e-mail to elias.carroni@unibo.it)

 

Orario di ricevimento

Consulta il sito web di Elias Carroni