From Individual Human Decisions to Economic and Financial Policies

It is a great honor for me to have received the University Latsis Prize from the Fondation Latsis Internationale. In this text, I describe the research for which the prize has been awarded and the research agenda to which these works belong. In a nutshell, my work analyzes how individuals make economic and financial decisions, when outcomes are uncertain and when the laws governing economic behavior are unknown. These individual decisions usually differ from the rational utility maximization assumed in traditional models. My work then tries to understand to what aggregate outcomes and policy implications such boundedly rational behavior leads in financial markets, in the macroeconomy, and in public finance and public economics.