Education, Preferences, and Economic Outcomes

Many of the global problems of our society emerge either by insufficient cooperation (e.g. poverty reduction) or excessive risk-taking (e.g. financial crises). Numerous empirical studies in the fields of psychology and economics have documented that human behavior is heavily influenced by preferences and settings. Important measures in this context are risk and time preference, trust and social preferences. In particular, time preferences seem to be a good indicator for the future life. These preferences and attitudes emerge in childhood, at least during adolescent, and are strongly influenced by the social environment, such as parents' home or school. Which exact circumstances lead to a favorable development of preferences and settings, is not satisfactory answered. In particular, there is so far little interaction between disciplines (economics, psychology and education). The agenda of the Summer School is to shed light on the influence of education on the individual and social determinants of preferences and settings, and to explore the resulting consequences on the life of individuals and society.

The summer school includes 4 days of lecture and 2 days of workshop. Lectures will take place on Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday (morning only) and will be given by George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon University), Rachel Croson, (University of Texas at Arlington), Matthias Sutter (University of Cologne), J.H. Sonnemans (University of Amsterdam) and Jens Möller (University of Kiel). On Wednesday and Thursday the second workshop on Social and Biological Roots of Economics (SBREW) is taking place at the Kiel Institute. Summer school participants are automatically registered and are invited to apply for a talk or poster presentation at the workshop.

The Summer School addresses graduate (MA or PhD) students and Post-docs with a strong academic record and a keen interest in policy issues, and staff members of policy institutions. The size of the group is limited to 25 participants. Participants will be hosted in the guest house of the Institute (“Haus Weltclub”).

• George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon University), Lecturer and Keynote speaker
• Rachel Croson, (University of Texas at Arlington), Lecturer and Keynote Speaker
• Matthias Sutter (University of Cologne), Lecturer and Keynote speaker
• J.H. Sonnemans (University of Amsterdam), Lecturer and Keynote speaker
• Jens Möller (University of Kiel), Lecturer
• Ralph Hertwig (Max Planck Institute for Human Development), Keynote speaker