Games and decisions with bounded rationality: theory and economic implications. This project will develop concepts and tools for decision making in complex environments, where it is impossible to fully characterise the possible outcomes and factors that may affect them. A central goal will be to integrate heuristic rules such as the precautionary principle with the more formal approach adopted in benefit-cost analysis.
Epistemically feasible choice: implications for sustainable risk management. The aim of this project is to examine procedural decision principles that will yield better choices in circumstances where, because of epistemic limitations, standard decision theory provides an inadequate guide. Individuals and policy-makers must make decisions even though they cannot be fully aware of all of the relevant possibilities or fully understand consequences they have not yet experienced. Examples include ind ....Epistemically feasible choice: implications for sustainable risk management. The aim of this project is to examine procedural decision principles that will yield better choices in circumstances where, because of epistemic limitations, standard decision theory provides an inadequate guide. Individuals and policy-makers must make decisions even though they cannot be fully aware of all of the relevant possibilities or fully understand consequences they have not yet experienced. Examples include individual decisions about marriage and childbearing, public policy decisions about complex environmental problems and decisions on funding scientific research. The expected outcome of the project will be a formal model of decision theory incorporating principles of resilience, sustainability and transformative experience.Read moreRead less
Introspection, Learning, and Equilibrium in Games: Theory and Experiment. Game theory is increasingly being used in the social sciences, but the extreme reliance on perfect decision making and perfect foresight has raised doubts about its empirical relevance. This scepticism is reinforced by laboratory evidence showing behaviour patterns that are systematically biased away from game-theoretic predictions. This project concerns the development and testing of models more descriptive of actual huma ....Introspection, Learning, and Equilibrium in Games: Theory and Experiment. Game theory is increasingly being used in the social sciences, but the extreme reliance on perfect decision making and perfect foresight has raised doubts about its empirical relevance. This scepticism is reinforced by laboratory evidence showing behaviour patterns that are systematically biased away from game-theoretic predictions. This project concerns the development and testing of models more descriptive of actual human behaviour. One aim is to deliver hybrid models able to reproduce interesting patterns of first-period play (introspection), time-series data in repeated games (learning), and systematic departures from static equilibrium. Another aim is to apply a successful hybrid to improve the design of economic and social institutions.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102640
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Behavioural foundations of economic design for an uncertain world. The aim of this project is to incorporate behavioural foundations into mechanism design to improve our understanding of economic institutions in incomplete information environments. To accomplish this goal, it considers a framework where agents have reference-dependent preferences and explores implications of this assumption for economic design.
Inductive game theory: experiential knowledge, interactions, and limited inferences in social contexts. This research project stresses the importance of limited experiences and limited inferential abilities for explaining differences observed across individuals and groups in society. The project will use inductive game theory to attack problems and conflicts between individuals and groups based on such limitations.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100340
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$311,000.00
Summary
Competition in persuasion. This project aims to develop tools to analyse situations where multiple self-interested persuaders attempt to convince a set of listeners. It will build upon recent developments in the economics of persuasion literature, and apply tools from mechanism design literature. This approach, unlike other existing work, is not limited to specific settings and has the advantage of being highly tractable. Using these tools, this project intends to provide insights into the mecha ....Competition in persuasion. This project aims to develop tools to analyse situations where multiple self-interested persuaders attempt to convince a set of listeners. It will build upon recent developments in the economics of persuasion literature, and apply tools from mechanism design literature. This approach, unlike other existing work, is not limited to specific settings and has the advantage of being highly tractable. Using these tools, this project intends to provide insights into the mechanisms behind grade inflation among universities, the optimal design of certification industries and information disclosure in clinical trials.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101768
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$368,777.00
Summary
Bank regulation: the implications of interconnectedness and adaptive behaviour. People often use rules of thumb in deciding which actions to take. By modelling people in this way this project seeks to determine the effects that different forms of bank regulation have in determining the frequency and scale of banking crises.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101452
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$357,996.00
Summary
Strategic interaction with limited memory: A theoretical approach. This project aims to propose a theoretical framework that would allow economists to explore and uncover the behavioural and welfare effects of memory constraints. By integrating cognitive constraints into existing economic theory, this project is expected to enhance economists’ future capacity to inform a diverse range of economic policies. Incorporating cognitive constraints into economic research can reduce unintended conseque ....Strategic interaction with limited memory: A theoretical approach. This project aims to propose a theoretical framework that would allow economists to explore and uncover the behavioural and welfare effects of memory constraints. By integrating cognitive constraints into existing economic theory, this project is expected to enhance economists’ future capacity to inform a diverse range of economic policies. Incorporating cognitive constraints into economic research can reduce unintended consequences of policy recommendations and is especially important in in complex markets such as health or household finance.Read moreRead less
Legitimacy and representation: A comprehensive study of electoral systems and strategic voting behaviour. What makes a good electoral system? How can it reflect the preference of the majority while guaranteeing representation to minorities? Should voting be voluntary or mandatory? These are very relevant questions for any democracy, but particularly so for Australia: a country which has always been at the forefront of the electoral debate, that proudly strives to represent with fairness all sect ....Legitimacy and representation: A comprehensive study of electoral systems and strategic voting behaviour. What makes a good electoral system? How can it reflect the preference of the majority while guaranteeing representation to minorities? Should voting be voluntary or mandatory? These are very relevant questions for any democracy, but particularly so for Australia: a country which has always been at the forefront of the electoral debate, that proudly strives to represent with fairness all sectors of its very diverse society and where voting is not only a citizen's right, but also her duty. By approaching these issues in a game theoretic framework, this project proposes to investigate the strategic nature of voting through a comprehensive study of electoral systems. The project will then test our theoretical predictions through a series of laboratory experiments. Read moreRead less
The economics of cooperative behaviour. Free-riding and rent-seeking, such as tax avoidance and nepotism, are group-undermining activities that societies including Australia continuously struggle with. The aim of this project is to develop a fuller understanding of how to protect human groups from these socially damaging group-related behaviours. Drawing on a conceptual grounding that combines ideas from across social science, the project aims to implement a suite of economic experiments to deve ....The economics of cooperative behaviour. Free-riding and rent-seeking, such as tax avoidance and nepotism, are group-undermining activities that societies including Australia continuously struggle with. The aim of this project is to develop a fuller understanding of how to protect human groups from these socially damaging group-related behaviours. Drawing on a conceptual grounding that combines ideas from across social science, the project aims to implement a suite of economic experiments to develop a view of humans' cooperative behaviour that unites several strands of economics literature and offers new insights about how institutions that counter free-riding and rent-seeking arise and are maintained.Read moreRead less