The Behavioural Economics group is a pioneer of experimental and behavioural economics.
UEA has been a leading centre of experimental economics since the 1980s, conducting some of the earliest economics experiments in the UK.
Members of our group developed some of the earliest behavioural theories of choice under risk and uncertainty, and made signal contributions to the problem of how to meaningfully measure how people value quality of life, the environment, and other goods and services which are not priced by market trading.
Our group continues to develop rigorous foundations for behavioural economics and the role of decision-making experiments in understanding how people make decisions. We are developing a new “science of the behavioural consumer”, understanding how, when and why consumers do or do not engage in searching in markets.
We are developing new models of consumer reactions to time-limited offers, common pricing standards, choice overload and perceptions of fairness of the behaviour of firms. These have novel implications for industry regulation with the behavioural consumer at its heart. We have active research programmes studying how people negotiate, and how people understand information that is given to them.
We work directly with users of behavioural economics research nationally and internationally, via knowledge transfer partnerships, consultancy, and the co-production of research with stakeholders ranging from local groups and charities to governmental and international development agencies.