Behavioural Economics module (BU30022)

You will learn how economic theories are used to explain how a rational person may act but more importantly that humans often make irrational decisions based on biases, heuristics, and social influences. This is a different perspective of economics with people based at the centre of how people make decisions.

Better understanding how humans make decisions, will allow you to have strategic insight when making your own personal and business decisions.

What you will learn

In this module, you will:

• be introduced to behavioural game theory, allowing us to model how people, firms, organisations, and countries interact with each other and the outcomes of these interactions
• explore cooperation, coordination, trust, competition, and fairness

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• understand how people make judgements over time, comparing conventional economics models and how these compare with how people behave
• discuss commitment, procrastination, and how people look at the future compared to the present

Assignments / assessment

• Class test (15%)
• Essay (15%)
• Final exam (70%)

Teaching methods / timetable

You should expect weekly lectures, tutorials and class experiments, a reading list will be provided for you to have prepared in advance to allow you to contribute to the class.

For this module, the exact dates of teaching and/or reading weeks are to be confirmed.