Botond Kőszegi

Botond Kőszegi is an economist and a professor at Central European University.

Botond Kőszegi
InstitutionCentral European University
FieldBehavioral Economics
Alma materMIT
Harvard University
Doctoral
advisor		Peter Diamond
Jon Gruber
AwardsYrjö Jahnsson Award

Early life and education

A bronze medallist in the International Math Olympiad 1991,[1] Kőszegi graduated magna cum laude in mathematics from Harvard University in 1996. He earned his doctoral degree in economics from MIT in 2000, under the supervision of Nobel laureate Peter Diamond and Romneycare/Obamacare architect Jon Gruber.

Career

After completing his PhD, Kőszegi joined the faculty of UC Berkeley. In 2002–03, he was also a visiting faculty member at his alma mater MIT. In 2012, he accepted an appointment at Central European University, ultimately leaving UC Berkeley in 2013.

Scholarship

Kőszegi is a theoretical economist with an interest in behavioral economics, who has studied, among other topics, temporal utility and addiction.[2]

According to Kőszegi, behavioral economics is not so much a branch of economics, as an attitude of the economists engaged in studying it. "Behaviorists simply strive to start from the most realistic human behavior possible."[3] Further, while the notion of nudging popularized by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein paints behavioral economists as libertarian paternalists, Kőszegi says that behaviorists are generally afraid of paternalism.[3]

Together with Matthew Rabin, Kőszegi developed a formal model to address criticisms of prospect theory. This work has been discussed in behavioral economics.[4][5][6]

Along with Paul Heidhues, Kőszegi has done work on the economic implications of consumer naivete.[7] This joint work shows that, while laissez-faire regulation is usually considered synonymous with competitive markets, for complex products the right regulations can foster, and are necessary for, competition. For example, in complex markets that require a high level of research from customers to get a good deal, price caps can be effective both in helping the less well-off and also in boosting competition.[8][9][10]

The ranking system of RePEc puts Kőszegi in the top 5% of economists for 26 of its criteria, including Number of Citations and h-index, among others.[11]

Awards

In 2015, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation awarded Kőszegi its biennial Yrjö Jahnsson Award, which is given to "young European economists who have made a significant contribution to theoretical and applied research in terms of the study of economics in Europe." Kőszegi received the award "for his contribution to the theoretical foundations of behavioral economics, and its application to public finance and contract theory."[12][13]

References
  1. "Botond Kőszegi". International Math Olympiad. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  2. "How to save a billion lives". The Economist. 2008-02-07. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  3. Szilágyi, Katalin (2010-09-09). ""Az emberi viselkedés nem valami rendellenesség" - interjú Kőszegi Botonddal". Magyar Narancs (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  4. Heffetz, Ori (2017-05-21). "What do lab experiments say about the Koszegi-Rabin theory of reference-dependent preferences?". The Herbrew University of Jerusalem. Retrieved 2020-08-25. Koszegi and Rabin’s (2006, 2007, 2009) model of expectations-based reference-dependent preferences offers a unified explanation for a diverse body of evidence across different domains. However, almost a decade of direct lab tests of the model has generated mixed evidence
  5. Freeman, David J. (2017). "Preferred personal equilibrium and simple choices". Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 143: 165–172. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2017.08.016.
  6. Friedman, Daniel; Isaac, R. Mark; James, Duncan; Sunder, Shyam (2014). Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-63610-0.
  7. Constantino, Sara (2017-01-10). "Economics: What you don't know can hurt". Nature. Retrieved 2020-08-25. Paul Heidhues of the European School of Management and Technology and Botond Kőszegi of the Central European University develop a model characterizing the welfare effects of naiveté-based discrimination. In this framework, firms use information about consumer sophistication to customize offers and naïve consumers incur unexpected charges.
  8. Sandbu, Martin (2018-04-20). "Rethinking regulation". Financial Times. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  9. Chu, Ben (2019-01-01). "Government price interventions don't usually end up helping people struggling, but the new energy cap may be an exception". The Independent. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  10. Moran, Cahal (2018-04-19). "Why the problem is economics, not economists". Open Democracy. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  11. "Botond Kőszegi". RePEc. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
  12. "Yrjö Jahnsson Award in Economics". Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation. Retrieved 2020-08-25. 2015: Botond Köszegi (Central European University) for his contribution to the theoretical foundations of behavioral economics, and its application to public finance and contract theory.
  13. Sullivan, Ferenc (2015-03-17). "Hungarian Wins Prize For Best Young European Economist". Hungary Today. Retrieved 2020-08-25.
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