Behavioural Economics: A Very Short Introduction

Description

Behavioural economics blends insights from economics and psychology to explain how people make everyday decisions. Analysing the forces that drive everyone's behaviour it helps us understand what people are motivated by, our impulse purchases, why we struggle to save, and how supermarkets can manipulate what and how much we buy.

• Introduces the field of behavioural economics, analysing the motivations behind economic decisions
• Shows the relevance of behavioural economics to our own lives and everyday economic and financial problems
• Considers some of the mistakes that we make in our everyday decision-making, and the models that behavioural economists use to analyse our risky choices
• Explores the influence of short-termism, impatience and the related problem of procrastination on our economic behaviour, and also personality, mood and emotions, and happiness and wellbeing
• Part of the Very Short Introductions series - over seven million copies sold worldwide

About the Author(s)

Michelle Baddeley, Professor in Economics and Associate Dean (Research and Development), University of Technology Sydney

Michelle Baddeley has a Bachelor of Economics (First Class) from the University of Queensland and a Masters/PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. She has held appointments at the Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra; Gonville and Caius College and the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge; University College London; and the Institute for Choice (University of South Australia). She is currently a Professor in Economics, the UTS Business School's Associate Dean (Research and Development), and the Director of the Centre for Livelihoods and Wellbeing. She is also President of the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics and Editor-in-Chief of its Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy. Her other affiliations include Honorary Professor - UCL Institute for Global Prosperity; Adjunct Professor - University of South Australia; Associate Fellow - Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy; and Associate Researcher - Cambridge Energy Policy Research Group.

Table of Contents

1:Introduction
2:Motivation and incentives
3:Quick thinking
4:Risky choices
5:Taking time
6:Social influences
7:Personality and emotions
8:Behavioural macroeconomics
9:Behavioural public policy
10:Behavioural economics: future prospects
References
Further Reading
Index

Reviews

"Behavioural Economics is a valuable addition to Oxford University Press's Very Short Introduction series, being well-suited to an intelligent and curious reader with limited background in the area. Baddeley offers a broad range of concepts, thinkers, experiments and implications. The book made me curious: I found myself looking up more detailed explanations of key experiments as I moved across concepts and chapters. This is perhaps the biggest compliment of all." - Barton Edgerton, LSE Review of Books