Berkeley Haas launches O’Donnell Center for Behavioral Economics

Established with a philanthropic investment of almost $17 million from Robert G. and Sue Douthit O'Donnell, the new center will bring together the best minds from a wide range of fields. Berkeley, Calif.-Ever since Nobel laureates George Akerlof and Daniel Kahneman created a 1987 UC Berkeley course that broke the rigid barrier between psychology and economics, the university has led the way in bringing the once-disparate disciplines together into the field of behavioral economics. More than 35 years later, the Haas School of Business is launching the Robert G. and Sue Douthit O'Donnell Center for Behavioral Economics to advance the field toward its next stage of evolution. "We went from neoclassical economics that considered humans to be perfectly rational, to behavioral economics that brought in social psychology," says Ulrike Malmendier , the Cora Jane Flood Professor of Finance, who will serve as the center's faculty director. "Now we want to move the needle further, bringing together the best minds for rigorous research on human behavior from the sciences more broadly-including neuroscience, cognitive science, biology, medicine, epidemiology, and genetics." Funded with a philanthropic investment of almost $17 million by Bob O'Donnell, BS 65, MBA 66, and his wife, Sue O'Donnell, the center aims to become the preeminent hub for the maturing fields of behavioral economics and finance, bringing together leading researchers from a wide range of disciplines for collaboration, conferences, and bootcamps, as well as funding promising PhD students and postdoctoral scholars.