This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The field of economics known as mechanism design considers how to design incentive schemes that reach desired outcomes. It has many applications and it represents one of the most important developments in economic theory over the past 30 years; indeed, this theory resulted in a recent Nobel Prize. At the same time, recent research in behavioral economics and decision science has strengthened our understanding of how people actually behave in strategic settings. This CAREER project focuses on discovering superior mechanisms based on this new behavioral knowledge.
The research plan includes both laboratory experiments and theoretical work to discover general behavioral principles, identify better mechanisms for specific areas of application such as auctions and carbon-trading systems, and to provide insight into the design of optimal mechanisms for a wide range of general applications.
The PI is creating a new summer workshop for high school students from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. These students participate in hands-on research workshops using economics experiments. Members of under-represented groups are particularly targeted by this program, which creates interest in pursuing a career in social science. The PI will also design and teach a new undergraduate course in behavioral economics of mechanism design. The class will include a ?capstone? component where students design and carry out their own experiment. Finally, he will restructure an existing doctoral course and start a reading group in behavioral mechanism design for graduate students and faculty in Economics and related disciplines, including decision science.
The research funded by this award provides further societal benefit because it will be used to develop the next generation of incentive mechanisms.
