RSM2522H – Marketing and Behavioural Economics (Fall 2022)

General Information

Target Audience

This highly interdisciplinary course will be particularly relevant to students with interests in Marketing, Design, Strategy, Behavioural Finance, Policy, and General Management.

Format

12 weekly sessions

Course Mission

The goals of this course are:

1. To study the basic principles of behavioural economics
2. To learn the application of the principles to various aspects of business and policy, and
3. To think about a framework for interventions, products, and programs that are behaviourally informed

Course Scope

The field of behavioural economics couples scientific research on the psychology of decision making with economic theory to better understand what motivates economic agents, including consumers, investors, employees, and managers. In this course, we will examine topics such as the role of emotions in decision-making, “irrational” patterns of how people think about products, money, or investments, and how expectations shape perceptions. This highly interdisciplinary course will be particularly relevant to students with interests in Marketing, Strategy, Behavioural Finance, Policy, and General Management. Topics covered will include: rationality and choice, violations of rationality, choice complexity, intertemporal choice, emotional influences on choice, the role of behavioural economics in marketing, spending and savings behaviour, social welfare, decision engineering and choice architecture.

Evaluation and Grade Distribution

Component	Due Date	Weight
Online Class Participation	Ongoing	14%
Semi-Weekly Short Answer Analyses (2)	48 hours after class in Weeks 4, 7, 8	36%
Nudge Challenges (2 Mini-Projects)	Weeks 6-12	50%

Required Resources

• Readings for this course will be drawn from academic papers and web links that will be posted on Quercus and to the edX edge Archive (not the edX website)

Last Updated: 2022-08-09 @ 9:21 am

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