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Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics is a research topic within General Decision Sciences. Science Explorer counts 28k research works in it since 1950. 26.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the intersection of psychology and economics, focusing on behavioral economics and decision making. It covers topics such as risk aversion, time discounting, heuristic decision making, the influence of emotion on choices, cognitive reflection, prospect theory, nudging, and the anchoring effect.

  • Risk Aversion
  • Decision Making
  • Time Discounting
  • Heuristic
  • Emotion
  • Cognitive Reflection
  • Delay Discounting
  • Prospect Theory
  • Nudging
  • Anchoring Effect
Research works
28k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
7.5k
per year above
Top-10% rate
26.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2013–17 → 2018–22
+2%
the tick is no change

Which countries lead Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research?

By volume, the United States and Germany publish the most (1.2k and 371 works in 2022–2025).

By volume, 2022–2025

  1. 1 United States 1.2k works
  2. 2 Germany 371 works
  3. 3 China 312 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom 306 works
  5. 5 France 160 works
  6. 6 Italy 144 works
  7. 7 Netherlands 142 works
  8. 8 Canada 128 works
  9. 9 Australia 125 works
  10. 10 Japan 113 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 39.0%Germany: 12.6%China: 10.6%United Kingdom: 10.4%6 others listed: 27.5%39%largest
United States1,151 · 39.0%Germany371 · 12.6%China312 · 10.6%United Kingdom306 · 10.4%6 others listed812 · 27.5%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research?

By volume in 2022–2025, University of Chicago publishes the most Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research, followed by California University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University.

By volume, 2022–2025

  1. 1 University of ChicagoUnited States 27 works
  2. 2 California University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 24 works
  3. 3 Cornell UniversityUnited States 23 works
  4. 4 University of TorontoCanada 23 works
  5. 5 Erasmus University RotterdamNetherlands 23 works
  6. 6 New York UniversityUnited States 22 works
  7. 7 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 19 works
  8. 8 University of WarwickUnited Kingdom 19 works
  9. 9 University of ZurichSwitzerland 19 works
  10. 10 UNSW SydneyAustralia 18 works

Who are the leading researchers in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics include Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Richard H. Thaler.

  1. 1 Daniel Kahneman United States 21k citations
  2. 2 Amos Tversky United States 19k citations
  3. 3 Richard H. Thaler United States 5.9k citations
  4. 4 Kenneth J. Arrow United States 5.4k citations
  5. 5 Amartya Sen United States 4.9k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

Where is Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research done?

The largest centres of Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research in 2022–2025 are London (United Kingdom), Beijing (China), Paris (France) and New York (United States). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in California and Rotterdam.

Largest cities, 2022–2025

  1. 1 London United Kingdom 84 works
  2. 2 Beijing China 63 works
  3. 3 Paris France 63 works
  4. 4 New York United States 62 works
  5. 5 Tokyo Japan 46 works
  6. 6 Sydney Australia 42 works
  7. 7 Chicago United States 37 works
  8. 8 Berlin Germany 35 works
  9. 9 Toronto Canada 35 works
  10. 10 Shanghai China 33 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. CaliforniaUS · 23.6 works47×
  2. RotterdamNL · 29.2 works12×
← less than its size predictsmore →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics than the world average.

See Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics on the map

Where is the best place to study Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Zurich, Erasmus University Rotterdam and University of Warwick score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 27.91%fractional works in this node (log) →share in the world top 10% →University of Zurich: 18, 35.6%Erasmus University Rotterdam: 23, 30.2%University of Warwick: 19, 27.9%Princeton University: 16, 41.1%University of Chicago: 27, 15.1%University of Cologne: 9, 39.4%New York University: 22, 24.4%University of Basel: 10, 27.3%London School of Economics and Political Science: 17, 12.9%University of Amsterdam: 14, 25.2%Princeton UniversityUniversity of ZurichErasmus University R…University of Warwick
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the table below. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1 University of ZurichSwitzerland 74.835.6%9.3×18 +12.6%
2 Erasmus University RotterdamNetherlands 73.130.2%20.9×23 -6.6%
3 University of WarwickUnited Kingdom 71.727.9%10.9×19 +41.2%
4 Princeton UniversityUnited States 71.141.1%10.0×16 -28.7%
5 University of ChicagoUnited States 62.015.1%8.9×27 +52.7%
6 University of CologneGermany 60.339.4%7.2×9 +66.8%
7 New York UniversityUnited States 60.124.4%7.4×22 +20.0%
8 University of BaselSwitzerland 59.827.3%10.0×10 -5.6%
9 London School of Economics and Political ScienceUnited Kingdom 59.712.9%19.2×17 +48.4%
10 University of AmsterdamNetherlands 57.925.2%7.4×14 +19.0%

Universities only. Score blends excellence (30%), specialisation (25%), size (20%), growth (15%) and international reach (10%), 2015–2022; growth compares 2010–14 with 2015–19.

Is Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research growing?

Output in 2018–2022 was 2% higher than in 2013–2017, peaking in 2015. The fastest-growing topics are Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics.

19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon — one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.