Queensland Behavioural Economics Group (QuBE)

Overview

Research leader

• Professor Uwe Dulleck

Research team

QUT

• Professor Benno Torgler
• Emeritus Professor Ed Dawson
• Dr Lionel Page
• Dr Dipanwita Sarkar
• Dr Tony Beatton

External collaborators

• Dr John Coates (University of Cambridge)
• Assoc Prof Jianpei Li (University of International Business and Economics, Beijing)
• Professor John Conley (Vanderbildt University)
• Professor Jonathan Feinstein (Yale University)
• Dr David Johnston (Monash University)
• Professor Rudolf Kerschbamer (University of Innsbruck)
• Professor Martin Kocher (University of Munich)
• Assoc Prof Yumei He (Southeast University - Nanjing)

Organisational unit

Lead unit QUT Business School

Research area

Economics

Keywords

QuBE, Queensland behavioural economics group, economic theory

Details

Events

Recent and upcoming workshops

• ANZWEE 2013 - Australia New Zealand Workshop in Experimental Economics
• OzPE - Australian Political Economy Workshop, October 2012
• Workshop in Behavioural Economics, February 2012

Recent and upcoming short courses

• Econometrics for laboratory experiments - Peter Moffatt (East Anglia), August 2012
• Behavioural Public Choice - Rebecca Morton (NYU), June 2012
• Behavioural and Experimental Economics - Martin Kocher (Munich), March 2012
• Contract Theory - Jianpei Li (UIBE, Beijing), February 2012
• Evolution and foundation of economic preferences - Luis Rayo (Utah), November 2011
• Genetics and Human Decision Making - Richard Ebstein (NUS), November 2011

Regular seminars

• School external seminar
• QuBE interdisciplinary seminars
• Postgrad reading group: frontier of research in behavioural sciences
• Brown bag seminars

Postgraduate program

The QuBE group offers an excellent environment for PhD research. Research students receive intensive support and training. Internal and external seminars and workshops, as well as a senior visitor program with a course component, provide an ongoing education to group members and interested scholars inside and outside of QUT.

International exchanges

The QuBE group is connected with several other leading research centres in Europe and the USA. We encourage our PhD students to have international experiences in one or several of them. Recent exchanges involved QuBE students spending several months in Mannheim, Innsbruck and Paris.

Postgraduate reading groups

• Postgrad reading group: frontier of research in behavioural sciences. Students are regularly invited to present and discuss recent and classical papers on behavioural economics.

• The Croissant Club is a discussion group on economic theory taking place every Friday morning, with a French culinary influence.
  

Projects

Members of the QuBE group have consistently published in leading economic journals and generated large research funding from public bodies to carry out fundamental as well as policy oriented research. In 2011 alone, the group received 1.5 million dollars in funding from the ARC to carry out research in behavioural economics.

• Honesty and Efficiency in the Provision of Expert Services: Doctors and other Experts as Participants in Economic Experiments
• Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Coaching in Reducing Workplace Stress: Laboratory and Field Investigations

Publications and output

Working papers

RePEc QuBE working paper series

Selected publications

Page L, Clemen RT, (2012) Do prediction markets produce well calibrated probability forecasts?, The Economic Journal, p1-33.

Frijters P, Beatton T, (2012) The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), p525-542.

Dulleck U, Kerschbamer R, Sutter M, (2011) The economics of credence goods: An experiment on the role of liability, verifiability, reputation and competition, The American Economic Review, p526-555. [no link provided]

Buscha F, Maurel A, Page L, Speckesser S, (2011) The effect of employment while in high school on educational attainment: A conditional difference-in-differences approach, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, p380-396. [no link provided]

Frey BS, Savage D, Torgler B, (2010) Interaction of natural survival instincts and internalized social norms exploring the Titanic and Lusitania disasters, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, United States of America p4862-4865.

Page L, Page K, (2010) Last shall be first: A field study of biases in sequential performance evaluation on the Idol series, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, p186-198.

Maasoumi E, Millimet DL, Sarkar D, (2009) Who benefits from marriage?, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, p1-33.

Cummings R, Martinez-Vazquez J, McKee M, Torgler B, (2009) Tax morale affects tax compliance: evidence from surveys and an artefactual field experiment, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation, p447-457.

Schaltegger CA, Torgler B, (2007) Government accountability and fiscal discipline: A panel analysis using Swiss data, Journal of Public Economics, p117-140.

Dulleck U, Kerschbamer R, (2006) On Doctors, Mechanics and Computer Specialists: The Economics of Credence Goods, Journal of Economic Literature, p5-42.