While listening to this interview with Professor Laibson, several intriguing facts about behavioral economics and how it has been used historically, how it is used today, and how it may be used in the future, stuck out to me. I think one of the most striking things is how recent the development of the field actually is. The idea that a scientific way to explain human behavior was not popularized as a field of study until the last 40-50 years is surprising. Perhaps this field was around but it wasn’t supported widely enough to become a legitimate field of academic interest.
Had I been conducting this interview, I wouldve wanted to know more about the different types of behavioral economics, i.e. what types of behavior can be explained using this scientific field of study. Consumer behavior, behavior by market actors, federal institution behavior, etc. are all different types of economic behavior and I would be curious to how these methods of prediction change between each of these various areas.