Human Behavior

This research project studies the pricing and liquidity implications of sentiment and disagreement as origins of radical uncertainty in financial markets.

“You are now leaving the world as you know it.”

Changing the incentives for how economists determine both the content of the subject and their approach to scientific research could increase the range of thinking in the profession

A genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment was conducted in a discovery sample of 101,069 individuals and a replication sample of 25,490. Three independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are genome-wide significant (rs9320913, rs11584700, rs4851266), and all three replicate.

At the heart of economics is a theory of action. It reflects views about how human beings make economic decisions and leads to an analysis of aggregate consequences.

Neoclassical economics has abolished the role of psychology in decision making by assuming that all individuals are rational optimizers with rational expectations about future events.

In “The Ambivalence of Scarcity” which is my contribution to L’Enfer des choses. René Girard et la logique de l’économie, written by Jean-Pierre Dupuy and originally published in French in 1978, I attempt to apply mimetic theory to modern economics and to economicphenomena, and also to explain why economic issues and economics as a discipline occupy such an important place in the modern world.

A striking feature of the neoclassical economic theory which has been dominant in Western universities in recent years is that it has had so little to say about innovation and innovation policy which is useful for policy-makers.

It would be nonsensical to blame economists for not foreseeing the crisis; even less for causing it. It was obvious there would be a crisis. It was impossible to foresee how it would start and evolve, and at what moment these events would occur.

The problem of value has always occupied a central place in economic thought and debate.

This research project explores ways to influence policy, starting with selected UK regulators, pension funds, and asset management groups, by testing the feasibility of “emotional finance” solutions to the prevention of future financial crises.

The human brain relies on three devices for its decisions: emotion controls; addictive learning; and intellectual processing. Understanding the conditions under which the three devices are engaged is essential for conscious decision-making.