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Topic · General Decision Sciences

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. 10.1% 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%
2.8k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-10%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
39% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Which countries lead Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.3k and 402 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.3k works
  2. 2 China 402 works
  3. 3 Germany 399 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom 335 works
  5. 5 France 177 works
  6. 6 Italy 158 works
  7. 7 Netherlands 155 works
  8. 8 Canada 142 works
  9. 9 Australia 140 works
  10. 10 India 133 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: 38.8%China: 12.1%Germany: 12.0%United Kingdom: 10.1%6 others listed: 27.1%39%largest
United States1,291 · 38.8%China402 · 12.1%Germany399 · 12.0%United Kingdom335 · 10.1%6 others listed904 · 27.1%

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

Which institutions lead Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research, followed by Max Planck Society and University of Chicago.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 57 works
  2. 2 Max Planck SocietyGermany 33 works
  3. 3 University of ChicagoUnited States 30 works
  4. 4 New York UniversityUnited States 29 works
  5. 5 Erasmus University RotterdamNetherlands 26 works
  6. 6 Cornell UniversityUnited States 26 works
  7. 7 University of TorontoCanada 26 works
  8. 8 California University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 24 works
  9. 9 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 23 works
  10. 10 Harvard UniversityUnited States 21 works

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

The most-cited researchers publishing on Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics include Robert John Tibshirani, Daniel J. Kahneman and Richard M. Ryan.

  1. 1 Robert John Tibshirani United States 396k citations
  2. 2 Daniel J. Kahneman United States 395k citations
  3. 3 Richard M. Ryan United States 395k citations
  4. 4 Albert Bandura United States 370k citations
  5. 5 Amos Tversky United States 327k citations
  6. 6 Edward L. Deci United States 325k citations
  7. 7 John P. A. Ioannidis United States 317k citations
  8. 8 Gordon Henry Guyatt Canada 315k citations
  9. 9 Karl John Friston United Kingdom 310k citations
  10. 10 Donald B. Rubin United States 301k citations

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

What are the most cited papers in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics?

The most cited paper in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics is "Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk" (Daniel J. Kahneman, Amos Tversky, 1988), with 32,957 citations. Next come "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" (28,737) and "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice" (17,591).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk Daniel J. Kahneman, Amos Tversky · Cambridge University Press eBooks Book chapter 25 Mar 1988 32,957
2 Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Science 27 Sep 1974 28,737
3 The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Science 30 Jan 1981 17,591
4 Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Journal of Risk and Uncertainty Oct 1992 15,858
5 A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation Ernst Fehr, Klaus M. Schmidt · The Quarterly Journal of Economics Open access Aug 1999 11,313
All 97 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research done?

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

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 90 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 73 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 71 works
  4. 4 ParisFrance 68 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 52 works
  6. 6 SydneyAustralia 45 works
  7. 7 ChicagoUnited States 40 works
  8. 8 ShanghaiChina 37 works
  9. 9 BerlinGermany 37 works
  10. 10 TorontoCanada 36 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. CaliforniaUS · 23.7 works40×
  2. RotterdamNL · 32.7 works12×
  3. PrincetonUS · 20.4 works7.8×
  4. CoventryGB · 20.1 works7.5×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

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 Chicago, Cornell University and University of Zurich 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%10%20%30%mean 15.86%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of ZurichCornell UniversityUniversity of OxfordUniversity of Chicago
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of ChicagoUnited States 71.79.1%9.2×30 +0.7%
2Cornell UniversityUnited States 71.613.7%5.2×26 +10.7%
3University of ZurichSwitzerland 70.424.9%7.4×20 -29.6%
4University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 69.512.4%4.3×23 +21.9%
5Princeton UniversityUnited States 67.714.3%11.8×20 -0.2%
6Stanford UniversityUnited States 66.419.5%3.1×18 -9.2%
7University of TorontoCanada 66.011.7%3.3×26 +16.2%
8University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 65.524.9%4.5×16 -29.5%
9UNSW SydneyAustralia 63.617.9%5.3×18 +18.5%
10Erasmus University RotterdamNetherlands 62.710.2%13.3×26 +1.1%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics, country by country

Is Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 10% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2015.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

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

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.017% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics10.4% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

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.

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