SFU is looking for paid volunteers to participate in economic experiments.
Fields of Research
Learning and Adaptation
The processes of pattern recognition, hypothesis formation and acceptance or refutation over time as part of the process of acquiring new, or modifying existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences
Experimental Economics
The application of experimental methods to study economic questions using controlled, scientifically-designed experiments to test economic theories under laboratory conditions
Macroeconomics
The study of how the aggregate economy behaves in matters such as inflation, price levels, rate of growth, national income, gross domestic product and changes in unemployment
Monetary Economics
The frameworks for analyzing money in its functions as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account and the effects of monetary systems, and associated financial institutions
Evolutionary Game Theory
Application of game theory to evolving populations using a framework of contests, strategies, and analytics into which Darwinian competition can be modelled
Computational Mechanism Design
Using computational systems to model and draw solutions from tools such as discrete algorithms, artificial intelligence, linear programming, game theory and discrete optimization
Latest Working Papers
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November 2019
Adoption of a New Payment Method: Theory and Experimental Evidence, (with J. Duffy and J.H. Jiang)
We model the introduction of a new payment method, e.g., e-money, that competes with an existing payment method, e.g., cash. The new payment method involves relatively lower per-transaction costs for both buyers and sellers, but sellers must pay a fixed fee to accept the new payment method...
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September 2019
Social Learning and Monetary Policy at the Effective Lower Bound, (with A. Grimaud, I. Salle, and G. Vermandel)
We develop a model that jointly accounts for the missing disinflation in the wake of the Great Recession and the subsequently observed inflation-less recovery. The key mechanism generating this state of affairs is a long-lasting coordination of agents on pessimistic expectations rather than persistent and exogenous shocks. We establish that the cost of those expectation-driven dynamics with respect to the benchmark of rational and homogeneous expectations amounts to 3.3% of permanent...
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July 2019
Are Sunspots Effective in a Big Crowd? - Evidence from a Large-scale Bank Run Experiment, (with C. Hommes, A. Peuker, and I. Salle)
With this research we aim to understand under what circumstances bank runs are more likely and under which conditions subjects follow sunspot announcements. Large groups are more likely to end up in the run equilibrium than small groups, when ‘waiting’ is perceived relatively risky. Sunspot announcements have only weak effects for large groups. In small groups (close to) sunspot equilibrium was observed in the more volatile environment...
Quotes
“If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.”
“All Money is a matter of belief.”
“No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.”
“Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.”