Behavioral Economics for Tech (BEtech)

Course Description

Behavioral economics studies the effect of psychological, social, cognitive and emotional factors on human decisions and behaviors. This course will help students learn key concepts from behavioral economics and apply them in their daily lives, in the design of products, and in the research of human behavior. This course will explore the opportunities and challenges faced by researchers and practitioners when exploring the interplay between behavioral economics and technology.

The course has these primary goals and student outcomes:

  1. Learn and apply concepts from behavioral economics in our daily lives.

  2. Study and evaluate methods, findings, and practices in state-of-the-art research in applied behavioral economics.

  3. Evaluate the effect of digital technology and economy on human behavior

  4. Use behavioral economics theory to inform the design of information technology in domains of health, finance, productivity and others.

Course Topics

  1. Decision-making in the information era

  2. Mental accounting in the digital economy

  3. Engagement and habit forming products

  4. Behavior change technology and digital nudging

  5. Algorithms in decision-making

  6. Recommender systems and intelligent systems

  7. Prediction and AI in human behavior

  8. Behavioral data science

  9. Health technology

  10. Future of work and productivity

  11. Digital experimentation

  12. Public policy in the digital economy

Examples of Economic Games