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"Behavioral economics" is a term that has become increasingly familiar to the general public in recent years, often appearing in TV commercials and other media. However, this academic field was established over 50 years ago in the late 1970s by two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.
 
Traditional economics assumes, as a premise for theory building, that people are “homo economicus,” meaning that they behave in a "perfectly rational," "perfectly self-controlled," and "perfectly selfish" manner. However, real human beings are not necessarily perfectly rational; they are moderately rational, moderately self-controlled, and moderately selfish. Behavioral economics seeks to uncover new insights by explaining the real human behavior overlooked by traditional economics through psychology and by extending traditional economic theories.
 
At the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics, there is no lecture titled "Behavioral Economics" other than my course, which is offered by the Management Department. The concepts of behavioral economics are well integrated in each field of economics (public economics, industrial organization, development economics, labor, health and medicine, education, etc.) and are independently developed to suit the field’s own needs. This is evidence that behavioral economics has become deeply embedded within traditional economics. Therefore, learning the basics of behavioral economics should be of great benefit to all who study economics, whether theoretical or empirical.
 
I have taught marketing at the undergraduate and graduate levels for six years at the University of Illinois Business School and for 25 years at the University of Tokyo. This book is based on my course "Behavioral Decision Theory and Behavioral Economics" offered in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. It reflects many things I have learned from teaching this course, including cases, papers discussed in class, and feedback from students.
 
This book is organized in four parts.
 
Part 1 explains the basic tenets of behavioral economics and introduces various examples to illustrate how the perfectly rational, perfectly self-controlled, and perfectly selfish "Homo economicus" differs from the behavior of real people.
 
The remaining three parts correspond to the current research trends in behavioral economics as a discipline: (1) description of phenomena, (2) explanation of mechanisms and theory, and (3) application to the real world, respectively.
 
Part 2, "Description of Phenomena," organizes observations and experiments on human behavior to understand the circumstances under which irrational behavior occurs and the regularities it follows, incorporating psychological theories along the way.
 
Part 3, "Explanation of Mechanisms and Theory," systematically examines why such irrationality arises. This includes the development of theories and the extension of traditional economic theories to build behavioral models used for prediction (how people are likely to behave) and norms (how people should behave). This section introduces theories and models that are moderately rational (prospect theory, mental accounting theory, transactional utility theory), moderately self-controlled (discounted construal level model), and moderately selfish (social preference models).
 
Part 4, “Applications to the Real World,” will show how elements of behavioral economic excel in describing, explaining, and predicting when compared to existing analyses, and what economic benefits they provide. This includes specific proposals for policies, corporate strategies, and individuals. Areas of application include public policy (nudge), marketing, finance (behavioral finance), human resource management, and self-actualization.
 

(Written by ABE Makoto, Professor, Graduate School of Economics / 2024)