Matthew Joel Rabin (born December 27, 1963) is an American economist. He is the Pershing Square Professor of

Behavioral Economics Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economi ...

in the Harvard Economics Department and

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

. Rabin's research focuses primarily on incorporating psychologically more realistic assumptions into empirically applicable formal economic theory. His topics of interest include errors in statistical reasoning and the evolution of beliefs, effects of choice context on exhibited preferences, reference-dependent preferences, and errors people make in inference in market and learning settings.

Background

Rabin was the Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley Economics Department for 25 years before moving to Harvard. He received a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

and

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

from

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in 1984 and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

in 1989. Before entering MIT, he was a research student at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. He is a member of the Russell Sage Foundation Behavioral Economics Roundtable and co-organizer of the Russell Sage Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics. Rabin has also been a visiting professor at M.I.T., London School of Economics, Northwestern, Harvard, and Caltech, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Russell Sage Foundation. His research is directed, among other economic fields, towards

behavioral finance Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economi ...

and

behavioral economics Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economi ...

. Rabin works on the economics of individual self-control problems, reference-dependent preferences, fairness motives and mistakes in probabilistic reasoning. He developed Rabin fairness as a model to account for fairness in social preferences. In 2001, he was awarded the

John Bates Clark Medal The John Bates Clark Medal is awarded by the American Economic Association to "that American economist under the age of forty who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge." The award is named after the ...

by the

American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics, with approximately 23,000 members. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Review, an ...

and also the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship. In 2006, he was awarded the John von Neumann Award by the Rajk László College for Advanced Studies.

References

External links

Psychology and Economics
An essay by Matthew Rabin
In Honor of Matthew Rabin: Winner of the John Bates Clark Medal
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rabin, Matthew 1963 births Living people MacArthur Fellows American behavioral economists Fellows of the Econometric Society University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Harvard Business School faculty 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists