Behavioural Economics

Applications are invited for a self-funded, 3 year full-time or 6 year part-time PhD project, to commence in October or February.

The PhD will be based in the Faculty of Business and Law and will be supervised by Dr Wolfgang Luhan, Dr Zahra Murad and Dr Federica Alberti.

The Faculty of Business and Law offers funding to attend conferences (currently £550), training (currently £450), and a work-based placement (currently a maximum of £3,000 tied up to the period of 12 weeks).

We are an active group of behavioural economists offering various projects for, or as basis of, Ph.D. thesis. Our research extends the standard economic models by looking at how psychological, emotional and social factors affect economic decision-making.

We are currently looking for Ph.D. candidates to work on the following topics:

1. Negotiations and Climate Change

The international community has set a target of keeping global warming below 1.5 C. The EU has outlined a vision of reducing global emissions by at least 60% below 2010 by 2050. Objectives and visions are of little use without a clear way forward and the progress made has been disappointing. So far, a global, enforcement agreement has proven elusive. (For example, the Paris Agreement falls short of requirements as proven by the US walking away from the agreement.) The project will focus provide insight into why a climate change agreement is difficult to achieve using game theory and behavioural economics. This, in turn, may provide insight into how to overcome such difficulties.

2. Can Behavioural Economics help to tackle Climate Change?

How to accommodate human behaviour to help prevent climate change? Adequate answers require a deep understanding of human-decision making in a wide range of domains including energy use, consumption of goods, and mobility choices. The project will focus on behavioural and environmental economics to explore environmental consumer and firm behaviours related to climate change.

3. The effect of biases on economic decision-making

Psychological literature has identified numerous biases that determine economic decisions. In most situations, people do not behave in the rational manner economic theories would predict. Prominent examples include the status-quo bias, overconfidence, bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, in-group/out-group bias and framing. The project will look at how cognitive bias(es) affect certain economic decisions and how de-biasing techniques may work to arrive at optimal decisions.

4. Decision-Making for others

A recent strand of literature considers decision making for others focusing on the question whether people would make similar or different decisions for others as for themselves. This form of decision making for others is not incorporated in standard economics models but is well included in every day decision-making environments (parents, brokers, managers, policy makers). This project aims to systematically identify and analyse economic situations in which existing theoretical models as well as related empirical results predict differences in behaviour between decisions taken for oneself and for others.

Fees and funding

Visit the research subject area page for fees and funding information for this project.

Funding availability: Self-funded PhD students only. 

PhD full-time and part-time courses are eligible for the UK Government Doctoral Loan (UK and EU students only – eligibility criteria apply).

Bench fees

Some PhD projects may include additional fees – known as bench fees – for equipment and other consumables, and these will be added to your standard tuition fee. Speak to the supervisory team during your interview about any additional fees you may have to pay. Please note, bench fees are not eligible for discounts and are non-refundable.

We encourage you to contact Dr Zahra Murad (zahra.murad@port.ac.uk) to discuss your interest before you apply, quoting the project code.

When applying please quote project code: ECFN4601020