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Colin Camerer headshot
Office: 121 Baxter Hall (77)
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HSS Home  /  People  /  Colin F. Camerer

Colin F. Camerer

Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics; T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair; Director, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
B.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1976; M.B.A., University of Chicago, 1979; Ph.D., 1981. Visiting Associate, Caltech, 1993; Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics, 1994-2008; Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics, 2008; Kirby Professor, 2008-;Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience Leadership Chair, 2017-; Executive Officer, 2017-19; Director, Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience, 2017- .
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Profile

Colin F. Camerer is a behavioral economist. With the goal of improving the economic analysis of decisions, games, and markets, he uses methods from psychology and neuroscience, including eye-tracking, lesion patients, EEG, fMRI, wearable sensors, machine learning, and animal behavior. His recent research has focused on visual salience and habits.

Camerer received his BA in quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins University, and he holds an MBA in finance and a PhD in decision theory both from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Before coming to Caltech in 1994, he was a faculty member at the University of Chicago GSB (1991–1994), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1983–1991), and the Kellogg Graduate School of Business at Northwestern University (1981–1983). He has held visiting professorships at Oxford University (2014–15) and Caltech (1987), and, since 2016, he has been a visiting fellow at the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, and a fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. Camerer was president of the Society for Neuroeconomics from 2005 to 2006 and president of the Economic Science Association from 2001 to 2003, and he has served on many editorial boards. Since 2007, he has been a chair of the Russell Sage Foundation Behavioral Economics Roundtable. He has one patent accepted on "Active Learning Decision Engines." Camerer was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2013, and he received an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm School of Economics in 2019.

Research Summary
Neuroeconomics; Behavioral Game Theory; Risky Choice; Salience and Attention; Habits; Experimental Economics; Behavioral Economics; Limited Strategic Thinking; Patience; Stock Market Bubbles; Neuroscience of Economic Decisions; Scientific Reproducibility
Selected Awards
  • MacArthur Fellowship 2013
  • Honorary Doctorate, Stockholm School of Economics 2019
Caltech Affiliations
  • Caltech Brain Imaging Center (CBIC)
  • T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
  • The Ronald and Maxine Linde Institute of Economic and Management Sciences
  • Center for Theoretical and Experimental Social Sciences (CTESS)
  • Computation and Neural Systems, program organized jointly by the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering and the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy.
External Affiliations
  • Wharton Neuroscience Initiative Fellow, 2016–present

Featured News

No Magic Number for Time It Takes to Form Habits
April 17, 2023
New machine learning study finds different habits take varying amounts of time to take root.
Caltech Celebrates 100 Years of Watson Lectures
October 10, 2022
At 7:30 p.m. PDT on October 12, Colin Camerer, the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics and director of the T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience, will launch the 100th anniversary season of the Earnest C. Watson lecture series.
"What Is a Short Squeeze?" and Other Pressing Stock Market Questions Answered
February 23, 2021
Colin Camerer discusses armchair traders and the latest stock market frenzy.
Read more news   >

Selected Publications

For a complete publications list, see feeds.library.caltech.edu
2023-24
CNS/Psy/Bi 102 b – Social and Decision Neuroscience
Ec/Psy 106 – Behavioral Game Theory
SS 201 abc – Analytical Foundations of Social Science
Psy 283 abc – Graduate Proseminar in Social and Decision Neuroscience
2022-23
CNS/Psy/Bi 102 ab – Brains, Minds, and Society
Ec/Psy 106 – Behavioral Game Theory
Psy 283 abc – Graduate Proseminar in Social and Decision Neuroscience
2021-22
CNS/Psy/Bi 102 ab – Brains, Minds, and Society
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