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Contact Information:
UCLA Anderson School of Management
110 Westwood Plaza
Entrepreneurs Hall, Suite C513
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
(310) 825-7348 (office)
keith.chen@anderson.ucla.edu |
Office hours:
See Syllabus
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Keith Chen is a Professor of Behavioral Economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His research blurs traditional disciplinary boundaries in both subject and methodology, bringing unorthodox tools to bear on problems at the intersection of Economics, Psychology, and Biology.
In early work examining the evolutionary origins of economic behavior, he has shown that when monkeys are taught to use money, they display many of the hallmark biases of human economic behavior, suggesting that some of our most fundamental biases are evolutionarily ancient. Professor Chen's most recent work focuses on how people's economic choices are influenced by the structure of their language. His work has shown that how a person's language encodes future events influences future-oriented behaviors as diverse as saving, smoking, and safe sex.
Professor Chen also advises numerous companies on topics at the intersection of behavioral economics, business strategy, and dynamic pricing. Most recently he was the Head of Economic Research for Uber, where among other projects he designed Uber's current "Surge" pricing model.
Research Interests: Behavioral Economics
and Microeconomic Theory
Some
Recent Papers:
Nursing Home Staff Networks and COVID-19
Joint with Judy Chevalier and Elisa F. Long
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan 5th, 2021
Racial Disparities in Voting Wait Times:
Evidence from Smartphone Data
Joint with Kareem Haggag, Devin G. Pope, and Ryne Rohla; forthcoming: RESTAT
Political Storms: Tracking Hurricane Evacuation Behavior using Smartphone Data
Joint with Elisa Long and Ryne Rhola
Published in Science Advances, September 2020
The Effect of Partisanship and Political Advertising on Close Family Ties (or the final published version here)
Joint with Ryne Rohla
Published in Science, June 2018
Awarded a Nature: Editor's Choice. Additional analyses and tables are in the supplementary materials, data and code are here, and full-size graphics and slides are here.
You can read and hear a bit about this work on political polarization here:
The Value of Flexible Work: Evidence from Uber Drivers
Joint with Judith Chevalier, Peter Rossi, and Emily Oehlsen
Published in the Journal of Political Economy, December 2019
Dynamic Pricing in a Labor Market: Surge Pricing and Flexible Work on the Uber Platform
Joint with Michael Sheldon
You can read and hear a bit about my work at Uber here:
The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets
Published in the American Economic Review, April 2013
You can read about this paper in these recent articles:
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Could Your Language Affect Your Ability to Save Money?
TED, Feb 2013
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Economics: Marshmallows and Rösti(graben)
Science, January 4th, 2013
Obese? Smoker? No Retirement Savings? Perhaps It's Because of the Language You Speak
Big Think, February 5th, 2012
Tomorrow, We Save
Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct 2012
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How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health
Scientific American, March 19th, 2013 |
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Can Your Language Influence Your Spending, Eating, and Smoking Habits?
The Atlantic, September 10th, 2013
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Are Women Overinvesting in Education? Evidence from the Medical Profession
Joint with Judith Chevalier
Published in the Journal of Human Capital
You can read about this paper in these recent articles:
How Choice Affects and Reflects Preferences: Revisiting the Free-Choice Paradigm
Joint with Jane Risen
Published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
You can read about this paper in a recent article:
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And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw
The New York Times, April 8th, 2008
Synopsis:
The Monty Hall Problem has struck again, and this time it's not merely embarrassing mathematicians. If the calculations of a Yale economist are correct, there’s a sneaky logical fallacy in some of the most famous experiments in psychology... |
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