Behavioral Economics Program

Over the last 30 years, psychologists and economists have joined forces to study how people process information and actually make decisions, rather than how they would make decisions if they were fully rational and selfish. The new field that this collaboration has spawned, dubbed behavioral economics, has provided an understanding of how people’s decisions deviate from “optimal” choices as well as the consequences of such deviations for consumers, managers, firms, and policy. This joint concentration between the Operations, Information, and Decisions and the Business Economics and Public Policy Department explores the behavioral aspects of economics and decision-making.  The concentration provides students with the opportunity to develop an understanding of: (a) the neoclassical rational actor model, (b) modifications to that model which reflect the psychology that drives human behavior, and (c) implications of those modifications for decision-makers, markets and public policy.

Requirements for Concentration:

BEPP 2200x: Behavioral Economics, Markets and Public Policy
OIDD 2900: Decision Processes

Plus electives (2 CUs), at most one non-Wharton course:

BEPP 2010: Public Finance and Policy
BEPP 2840: Game Theory for Business and Life
BEPP 3050: Risk Management
ECON 2600: Decision Making
FNCE 2390: Behavioral Finance
MKTG 2110: Consumer Behavior
MKTG 2660: Marketing for Social Impact
OIDD/BEPP 2610: Risk Analysis and Environmental Management
OIDD 2910: Negotiations
OIDD 2920: Advanced Negotiations
OIDD 3190: Agents, Games, and Evolution
OIDD 4900: Science of Behavior Change
PSYCH 2530: Judgment and Decisions

Contact concentration advisor: Katy Milkman