Centre for Behavioral Economics
Behavioral Economics offers realistic psychological foundations to economic decisions and can increase the explanatory power of economic theories. Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes were among the pioneers who discussed path breaking concepts in behavioral economics like lack of self-control, pain of loss, overconfidence. The subject regained its power after the Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Richard Thaler empirically explained various anomalies in standard economic and finance theories with the help of psychology.
The insights of behavioral economics are assisting corporations across the world to improve employee productivity and hiring and promotion policies, increase efficiency of marketing and investment strategies. Similarly, Governmental bodies of various countries are introducing behavioural interventions and nudges to improve public policy outcomes in the context of tax compliance, retirement planning and charitable behavior.
Experimental Economics has offered unprecedented power to test human behavior in a controlled laboratory setting or in the field. Carefully designed experiments have contributed significantly to the advancement mainly in development and behavioural economics.
The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics establishes the Centre for Behavioral Economics with the vision of teaching the subject in scientific way and conducting evidence-based behavioural research to transform society.
The Centre for Behavioral Economics aims to
- Develop expertise in the subject among students, researchers and professionals
- Develop research capacities to augment the subject knowledge
- Inform and influence public policies
Resource Persons
- Savita Kulkarni
She holds doctorate degree in behavioral economics from the University of Mumbai. She has been teaching and conducting workshops on behavioral economics in various institutions across India. She also leads research projects exploring the role of social preferences and informal bargaining institutional structure in economic decisions.
- Ashish Kulkarni
He holds doctorate degree from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. He teaches behavioral finance course to postgraduate students.
Facilities:
Computer laboratory (capacity 36) equipped with experimental softwares like Ztree or Otree
Activities at the Centre Since 2018
- IBEN’s Behavioral Economics Meetup-Pune is organized on Sunday, 15th October 2023 (4 to 6 pm)
- Organization of 15-hours (online) workshop on Behavioral Economics and Nudging during 31st August 2022 and 7th September 2022
- Hosted a seminar on ‘Social Scrutiny in India: An online survey experiment to examine the effect of social scrutiny on identity-related behaviour in India’ by Ms. Poorvi Iyer, a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics on 16th June 2022
- Annual (online) workshop on ‘Behavioral Economics and Experimental Economics: An Introductory Workshop’ from 25th to 27th February, 2021
- Organization of Pune Behavioral Economics Meet (Invited speakers – Prof. Dilip Soman, Canada Research Chair & Biju Dominic, CEO- final Mile consulting, Mumbai on 16th February 2020
- Organization of 15-hours (offline ) workshop on “Introduction to Behavioral Economics and its Applications” between 19th to 23rd August 2019
- Organization of ‘Behaviorally Connected’ Meetups – an informal discussion forum to connect with those interested the subject in the city during July 2018 and December 2018
- Hosting a workshop on Behavioral and Experimental Economics by Monk Prayogshala, Mumbai sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics, on 2nd and 3rd April, 2018
- Workshops on ‘Introduction to Behavioral Economics and its Applications’ at various educational institutions and corporate houses including National Academy of Customs Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, Indian Institute of Public Administration, ReBIT (Reserve Bank Information Technology Pvt Ltd), Department of Economics, Savitribai Phule Pune University
- Assistance to Pune Traffic Department in improving fine collection and regulating traffic
Contact
Email of the Centre: cbe@gipe.ac.in
Coordinator: Dr. Savita Kulkarni
Email: Savita.kulkarni@gipe.ac.in
