Teaching

Undergraduate Course:

In Fall 2013 I will teach a course titled "Biases, Motivations and Persuasion in Decision Making". This course will help students to better understand how humans make judgments and decisions and why they make mistakes. We will review research on human decision making from psychology, political science, organizational behavior and economics. Then, we will study some individual and group decision errors that are particularly important for real world problems and look for easy‐to‐implement solutions (i.e., “nudges”). At the end of this course, students are supposed to become “choice architects” able to identify human biases and design environments that both yield better decision making and achieve behavior that is consistent with overall system goals.

More info here

PhD Course:

From September 30 to October 4, Prof. Paolo Buonanno and I will teach an intensive course titled "Economics of Crime". We will present recent empirical research papers dealing with crime control policies and the link between crime and social policies. In more detail we will analyze Law Enforcement and Crime Control Policies (What is the effect of police forces on crime rates? What is the effect of incarceration on criminal behavior? How prison threat deters crime; What is the effect of prison experience on crime?) and the link between Crime Economic and Social Conditions (Does unemployment affect crime rates? Does prison experience affect labour market outcomes of former inmates? What is the effect of education on crime rates?). The course will be reading intensive. Evaluation will be based on a research project each student has to present by the end of the course.

More info available soon

Master Thesis:

Students interested in writing a MA thesis on Behavioral and Experimental Economics can contact me privately.

I am currently working on several projects on waste recycling, incentives and team morale, willpower and productivity, unethical behavior, etc. I am also running new interesting experiments with children in Italy.

My teaching portfolio is available upon request.