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Online Course Behavioral Economics

Peter P. Wakker
Erasmus University Rotterdam



Material used




Specification of material to be studied

The material to be studied is specified in detail below, organized as homework for three meetings. Exercises are in the file linked above.
Advice: try to solve exercises yourself before inspecting solutions. If you can't solve an exercise, don't look at solutions yet, but search in the theory to find your lack of knowledge. This searching is the most useful stage of learning.

1st meeting

Topics: ordinal foundation of economics in 1930s; its first successes: behavioral foundations of preference, utility, expected utility, discounted utility, utilitarianism; empirical problems; biases-heuristics

Material (homework for 2nd meeting): study Chs. 1-3 of the powerpoint slides, linked above, and the recordings for 1st meeting.
Exercises: 1.4.2, 1.4.4, 1.5.2, 1.6.1, 1.6.2, 1.7.1, 2.3.1, 2.4.1, and 2.5.1
Solutions to these exercises


2nd meeting

Topics: most mathematical meeting; many behavioral theories for risk, time, and interpersonal

Material (homework for 3rd meeting): study the powerpoint slides up to and including Ch. 5, and the recordings for 2nd meeting.
Exercises: 3.2, 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.5.3, 4.6.1, 5.4.1
Solutions to these exercises


3rd meeting

Topics: welfare theories; behavioral theories applied to game theory, risky choices, discounting and self-control; framing, and more fundamental breakaways from revealed preference

Material (final homework: study the powerpoint slides and recordings for 3rd meeting. Skip: §8.2 (Quantal response equilibrium). Also study the solution to Exercise 3.2.
Exercises: 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 5.2.1, 5.3.1, 5.3.2, 6.1.1, 8.1.1, 12.1.1
Solutions to these exercises