Colin F. Camerer

Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics
Fellow of the Econometric Society, 1999
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2003

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Research interests

Corporate strategy, decision sciences and experimental economics.

Research Statement

Professor Colin F. Camerer is the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics at Caltech.

Camerer earned a BA degree in quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins in 1977, and an MBA in finance (1979) and a Ph.D. in decision theory (1981) from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Before coming to Caltech in 1994, Camerer worked at the Kellogg, Wharton, and University of Chicago business schools. He studies behavioral and experimental economics.

Behavioral economics applies psychological principles to economic decisions, in an effort to "reunify" these social sciences. Complete preferences (i.e., utility maximization), equilibrium, perfect competition, and (later) Bayesian updating and rational expectations are undoubtedly useful simplifying assumptions. But most economic models which rest on these foundations can be improved by using psychological regularity to suggest better theories.

To achieve this goal, "behavioral economics" uses evidence from psychological studies of limits on computational ability and willpower, and the influence of emotions like envy, guilt, and moral obligation on economic activity. Behavioral economists study precise mathematical models of how willpower and computational limits and emotions work, and use these models to make predictions about behavior both in the laboratory and in field data.

Neuroeconomics is the creation and use of data on brain processes to suggest new underpinnings for economic theories, which explain how much people save,, why there are strikes, why the stock market fluctuates, the nature of consumer confidence and its effect on the economy, and so forth. Caltech is a leader in this exciting area.

Publications

Experience-weighted attraction (EWA) learning in normal-form games, with Teck-Hua Ho, Econometrica, 67, July 1999, 827-874.

Can asset markets be manipulated? A field experiment with racetrack betting. Journal of Political Economy 1998: 457--482.

Labor supply of New York City cab drivers: One day at a time, with L. Babcock, G. Loewenstein, and R. Thaler. Quarterly Journal of Economics 111 (1997): 408--441.