Matthew Rabin (Department of Economics)
First-Year Seminar 73R | Spring Term | Tuesday, 12:30-2:45 PM
Enrollment limited to 15 | CANVAS SITE
This seminar explores what existing research tells us about the determinants of well-being, how it relates to the choices that people make, and how researchers (especially economists) go about
quantifying wants and well-being in a way that permits their rigorous study. The seminar will begin with a presentation of the most basic approach within economics: Attempting to capture the notion of rational pursuit of our own well-being (or other goals people may have), economists translate the study of people into mathematical analysis by developing the notion of a utility function. We will begin by presenting the basics of the economic approach. We will then illustrate some of what psychology teaches us about which human concerns are missing from the textbook economics account of people’s goals. We will then explore about the important biases and failures humans make that can create systematic wedges between the choices we make and the actions that would maximize well-being. We’ll discuss which of the psychological improvements we outline seem to matter for economic and social outcomes, and how these improvements can be translated into the mathematical language used in economics.
Prerequisites: No background in either Psychology or in Economics is assumed. (But hopefully the seminar will help participants who have taken or will take such courses in economics, psychology, policy, philosophy, or other social sciences bring new perspectives to those courses). Even though statistical standards must be intrinsic to any careful study of the issues explored here, no specific statistical background is assumed.
The course will use mathematics throughout, so that enrolled students need to establish that they have an appropriate background. No knowledge of advanced mathematics is assumed, so that the hope is that it will be as accessible as possible to as broad a range of first-year Harvard students as possible.