Behavioral and Experimental Analyses in Macro-finance

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The current economic and financial context suggests that there is an urgent need for a new paradigm for economic thinking based on more realistic behavioral and cognitive assumptions about decision makers. Beyond the theoretical rethinking, we need a better set of tools for economic policy analyses that would shift the focus from one based on isolated atomistic optimizing agents to one emphasizing the importance of complex interactions among heterogeneous boundedly rational economic agents.To meet these challenges, we aim to analyze the effects of (1) macroeconomic policies, both monetary and fiscal, (2) regulations related to information disclosure, and (3) introduction of financial instruments within analytical frameworks that are based on more realistic behavioral foundations. We will combine extensive sets of laboratory experiments, focusing both on individual behaviors and aggregate outcomes, and computational and mathematical models. The fruits of our research will be communicated not only to academic professionals through participation in conferences and publications in peer-reviewed journals, but also to policy makers through various occasions (such as AMSE policy lectures) and to non-professionals via active participations in scientific events. Our project website will serve as a depository of our data, experimental software, and working paper, which will be a basis for a global (virtual) research center of experimental macroeconomics and finance in Europe.