Hi all,

I am currently taking a course on Behavioral Economics through Edx, and will soon come up with some specific research problem. Will keep you all posted.

Thanks

Thank you Jon. I am thinking of taking up research in health behavior in Indian lower socio-economic class , about how their household financial decisions affect their health and how could they be trained on this issue. Could you please give some inputs/ some guidance?

I can send you the detailed background through e-mail if you are interested in the same.

The project is still at concept level. I would like to send you my synopsis through e-mail rather than writing the whole story...if you do not mind.My e-mail id is [email protected]

@Vibha Deshpande: sounds interesting. I would also like to know a bit more about the project if you wish to share.

@Jon,I have sent you the mail, also attaching the brief here. Thank for your inputs. I am reading the book by Esther Duflo and Banerjee, Poor Economics. I had no idea about J-Pal. I am studying that after you wrote about. I am no where connected to Economics as a subject, but the micro-economics by Muhammad Yunus has inspired me to think on this subject. Only recently I have started reading about it. In India, many women group are working on those principles and bringing good change in their lifestyle. If I could develop some training model to help them , through Behavioral Eco, it will be great pleasure for me. That's my purpose of this research. I am not interested in just measuring and giving statistics to publish but to have some application of this research.

I hope to get good inputs, guidance from this group.

@ Abhijit Chandra, I am attaching the file for details

@VD: pretty interesting read, and a very common issue we see around. looking forward to read more updates and discuss.

It's very interesting.. I'll be waiting to see the development of this study.

Thank you so much Jon. Sure I'll read these papers. I know, it's a difficult task to change behaviors and yes, I too believe in autonomy of how somebody would want to make their decisions. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am thinking of focusing on the women in lower socio-economic group who suffer much more than anybody who earns well and make choices to put him/her in difficulty. They face immediate consequences of their behavior and they have very little idea about managing finances. Also, their behavior far more affected by their status, lack of education and low self esteem. My status as a researcher is still not really defined. I have been working independently for a long time and would be sending proposal for funding to various agencies. Waiting to finalize my research design yet...

I am thinking of researching the factors affecting their choices, designing and executing training programs for couple of years and see the impact, if any. If that seems to really show a measurable change in their health behavior and status, I would take this training as a mission to train as many women as possible. (As I previously mentioned , I am still just at exploring stage of what and how to work. It might take long even to start up this research.)

Sure, Jon. Collaborations are certainly better . I will get in touch with them at earliest. Thank you so much for your valuable inputs.I will keep you posted how things go.

Also see Irrationality in Health Care by Douglas Hough, Stanford University Press

Sure. Thank you William.

Thank you Jon. Vibha, I work for FinalMile consulting, we do extensive work in influencing behavior change using cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. We are based in Mumbai and Chicago.

Please do let me know if you would like to get in touch.

Sayali

Hi Sayali,

Thank you Sayali.Sure, I would like to get in touch. Will you please write to me on [email protected]? I am interested in taking up some research. Let's see if we can be of mutual help.

Vibha

To all those who sent me very useful information quickly, you might be feeling that I have just not interacted for long and probably not taking this further. It's not so. Right now I am doing some reading and staring some research work is planned for little later. I am just collecting and reading information. @Jon, I still have to decide any specific research question. I still need to get the hang of the subject. But I am sure to work in this field . Will keep the developments posted . Thanks.

Vibha

Hi all,

I am currently taking a course on Behavioral Economics through Edx, and will soon come up with some specific research problem. Will keep you all posted.

Thanks