Interdisciplinary Research
Behavioral Decision Making
Seminars & Activities
- February 16, 2024, 10:30 a.m., Aresty 532
Speaker: Brian Polin, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor Jerusalem College of Technology.
Title: Insights into cognitive efficiency in decision-making: When should we stop thinking?
Abstract: The dual-process theory (DPT) defines two different systems of thinking: System 1 and system 2. The former is associated with quick decision-making based on emotions and intuitions. The latter is a slower, more deliberate type of processing, based on analysis and reflection. This dichotomy gained popularity recently in Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking, fast and slow." An extensive body of research points to better life outcomes for system 2 individuals, including longer life expectancy, better health and avoidance of conspiracy theories. However, many decision-making situations involve chance, where no degree of analysis can improve the outcome. In a series of experiments, we observe the decision-making behavior of intuitive and rational thinkers. Our findings indicate that intuitive thinkers decide slowly and waste cognitive resources by reasoning, even when conscious thought cannot improve the outcome. We discuss the notion of "cognitive efficiency" and the ability to turn off reflective thought mechanism when it generates diminishing marginal returns. -
Jim Rowlee, University of Miami Director of Office of Estate and Gift Planning and former Business Law professor at Miami Herbert, hosts "The Power of Choice" with Associate Professor of Marketing and Researcher Claudia Townsend.
Watch the Full Video - Presentation: Robert J. Shiller, American Economist and Nobel Prize Winner Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, 2019
- Distinguished Scholar in Residence: Nicholas C. Barberis, Stephen and Camille Schramm Professor of finance, Yale School of Management, 2019
- Presentation: Suzanne Shu, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of California, Los Angeles, 2019
Brown Bag seminar series, 2019-2020
Purpose-Driven Leadership
The following is a list of members of the Behavioral Decision-Making Cluster, all of whom are from the University of Miami community. Clicking on a member's name takes you to their curriculum vitae.
George Korniotis, Co-Chair
George Korniotis is a professor of finance at the Miami Herbert Business School at the University of Miami. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Before joining the University of Miami, he taught at the University of Notre Dame and served as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC. He attended the University of Cyprus for his undergraduate studies where he graduated in 1998. He was the valedictorian of his class and received the presidential award of the Republic of Cyprus for exemplary academic achievements. He attended Yale University for his graduate work. He graduated from Yale in 2003 receiving his doctorate degree (PhD). At Yale, he studied under Peter Phillips and the Nobel laureate Robert Shiller. His research centers on topics of investment choice, behavioral finance, household finance, and asset pricing. His work has been published in various academic journals including the
Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies.
Claudia Townsend, Co-Chair
Claudia Townsend is an associate professor of marketing. Her research focuses on visual presentation and the use of subtle visual cues to nudge behavior. Her research has been published in leading marketing journals and she is on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Marketing Research. She teaches Sustainable Marketing among other courses.
Zahra Azadi
Zahra Azadi teaches operations management in the undergraduate program and joined the faculty in 2018 after completing her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at Clemson University. Her research interests include vaccine supply chain, integrated inventory and pricing decisions, and healthcare operations management.
Gennaro Bernile
Profesor Bernile obtained a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Rochester in the Summer of 2006. Prior to re-joining the University of Miami in January 2017, he worked at LeeKong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University since 2013. Prior to that, Professor Bernile served on the faculty of the University of Miami and worked at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a Visiting Scholar between 2008 and 2010, where he was engaged both in rule-making and enforcement activities. He has also worked on ad hoc consulting assignments for forensic Economics Inc. since 2005.
Khrystyna Bochkay
Khrystyna Bochkay teaches advanced managerial accounting in the undergraduate program and joined the faculty in 2014 after completing her Ph.D. in Accounting at Rutgers University. Khrystyna holds a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and a Masters of Science in Statistics from Ivan Franko National University in L’viv, Ukraine.
Timothy R. Burch
Timothy Burch joined the faculty of Miami Herbert Business School in 1997 after earning his Ph.D. in Finance at theUniversity of Michigan. He teaches corporate finance and investments at the undergraduate and graduate levels and has served on the board of a mutual fund family. Prior to graduate studies, Professor Burch worked as an actuarial analyst at a global pension consulting firm. His research interests include mergers and acquisitions, asset price bubbles, and mutual funds.
Vidhi Chhaochharia
Vidhi Chhaochharia is an associate professor of finance and co-chair of the Sustainable Business Research Cluster at the University of Miami. Professor Chhaochharia’s research focuses on corporate governance. Research by professor Chhaochharia has appeared in leading finance journals such as the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Journal of Finance.
Stefanos Delikouras
Stefanos Delikouras is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Miami Herbert Business School. His research focuses on asset pricing, household portfolio choice, and behavioral finance. His dissertation examines the effect of non-standard preferences on the ability of consumption-based asset pricing models to explain the cross-section of expected returns. Stefanos holds degrees from the University of Piraeus, Greece (BA in Banking and Finance), and the University of Michigan (Ph.D. in Finance).
Diana Falsetta
Diana Falsetta is an associate professor in the Department of Accounting at the Miami Herbert Business School. Her primary research interest focuses on taxpayer judgment and decision making and tax policy. Diana’s research has been published in academic journals including The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and The Journal of the American Taxation Association. She served as an associate editor at The Journal of the American Taxation Association and Behavioral Research in Accounting, and currently serves on the editorial boards of The Journal of the American Taxation Association, Behavioral Research in Accounting, and Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research.
Michael T. French
Dr. French is a health economist and professor and department chair for the Department of Health Management and Policy, and academic director of the Master of Health Administration Program at the Miami Herbert. His research interests and experience include health economics, health policy, program evaluation, transportation policy, substance abuse research, alternative health care delivery systems, pharmacoeconomics, human resource economics, and the economics of crime. He has been the principal investigator or project leader on numerous research grants with the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and several state agencies.
Alex Horenstein
Dr. Horenstein is an Associate Professor of Economics at Miami Herbert. Raised in Mendoza, Argentina, he graduated from Universidad Nacional de Cuyo with a Licentiate degree in Economics. He continued his education in the United States where he attended Arizona State University and obtained a Ph.D. in Economics. Prior to moving to Miami, he worked as an Assistant Professor of Finance at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. In Mexico, he was hired by several firms for his specialized knowledge in financial consulting. His research interests include financial economics, econometrics, and experimental and behavioral economics.
Caglar Irmak
Caglar Irmak is a Professor and Department Chair of Marketing at Miami Herbert Business School. He received his Ph.D. in marketing from Baruch College, City University of New York, and had academic positions at the University of South Carolina and University of Georgia prior to joining the University of Miami. His research interests include consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility initiatives. More broadly, he investigates consumer decision-making and perception of products, especially those that are relevant to consumer health and well-being.
Alok Kumar
Alok Kumar is the Gabelli Asset Management Professor of Finance and Chair of the finance department. Recently, Professor Kumar’s research has investigated the risk premium for low climate beta stocks and the effect of weather on stock performance. Research by Professor Kumar has appeared in leading finance journals including the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Journal of Finance.
Ville Rantala
Ville Rantala joined the Miami Herbert Business School after earning his Ph.D. from Aalto University. Much of his research focuses on social interaction effects among individual financial decision-makers. In his work, Rantala has studied how social networks influence the behavior of individual investors and corporate decision-makers and how investment information spreads through social connections. His research interests are in the areas of behavioral finance, corporate finance, and household finance.
Michael Tsiros
Michael Tsiros is Patrick J. Cesarano Professor of Marketing Miami Herbert. His research focuses on the role of customer satisfaction and regret in decision-making, behavioral pricing, symbolic brand associations, and cause-related marketing. His articles have appeared in several leading journals: Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Retailing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Journal of Service Research. His research has been widely cited and has won awards for its impact in the field.
Nan Yang
Nan Yang received her Ph.D. in decision, risk and operations from Columbia University in 2007. She joined the University of Miami in 2016. She taught previously at Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis. Her research interests include supply risks in supply chain management, integrated supply and demand management, competition in supply chain management, and healthcare operations.