«Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of
the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to
serve and obey them.» (David Hume)
I am a research scholar affiliated with the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. Previously I was a PPE fellow in the Philosophy, Politics & Economics Program at the University of Pennsylvania and at its Center for Social Norms & Behavioral Dynamics. I specialize in Behavioral Economics and Game Theory (CV). My research has been published in the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Quantitative Economics, and the Journal of Economic Theory, among other outlets.
In particular, my work falls in the domain of micro-based behavioral economics. My typical paper addresses issues in strategic reasoning, and presents both theoretical and empirical results in such a way to be readily amenable to policy analysis. Some of my work is inspired by philosophical accounts of “informal institutions”, like social norms and conventions; in other research, I have examined epistemic issues in perception and risk-taking behavior. More generally, my research investigates non-standard knowledge structures and preferences, the emergence of informal rules of conduct, and the impact of information transmission on individual behavior and public policies.
M. C. Escher: Up and Down