Behavioural Economics Laboratory

The University Of Western Australia



People


Michael Burton

Professor, School of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

My research has primarily been in the area of individual behaviour and choice, with an emphasis on consumer demand, farmer behaviour and non-market valuation techniques. Much of that research has been based on stated preference surveys, with an interest in extending our understanding of what underlies heterogeneity in peoples responses. I have 77 publications in refereed journals, and an H-index of 18 on both ISI and Scopus data bases. In recent years I have been responsible for winning grants involving CSIRO Flagship programs, a CSIRO Cluster, and a CERF Research Hub. I have supervised 16 PhD students to completion.

Representative publications

Mark Hurlstone

Assistant Professor, School of Psychology, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

Assistant Professor Mark Hurlstone is a cognitive scientist in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Australia. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from the University of Leicester (UK), and Master’s and Doctoral Degrees from the University of York (UK). His research interests include working memory; auditory distraction and cognitive performance; reasoning and decision making; and computational modelling of cognitive processes. His research also examines how insights from psychology and behavioural economics can be harnessed to improve science communication, especially in relation to climate change. Further information about his research can be found on his academic homepage.

Representative publications

Sayed Iftekhar

Research Associate Professor, School of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

I am an environmental and resource economist. I have experience in using many tools such as laboratory and field experiments, agent based modelling, bio-economic modelling and community surveys. I have research interests on many aspects of natural resource and environmental management, such as, agri-environmental service payment, inter-generational equity, role of social networks, endogenous network formation, coordination games, preferences of equity norms, equity-efficiency trade-offs, risk aversion in public decision making, mechanism design and non-market valuation of water resources.

Representative publications

Zoe Leviston

Research Scientist, Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, CSIRO
CSIRO personal page

Research interests

Dr Zoe Leviston is a social psychologist with the CSIRO's Land & Water Flagship. Her research investigates how individuals, groups, and culture shape people's responses to natural resource challenges, including water security, agricultural management, and resource consumption. Dr Leviston applies social science to a broad range of natural resource domains, however, her key research foci are in climate change mitigation and adaptation, agricultural land management practice, and public acceptance of water supply schemes. Her particular research interests concern how elements such as social identity, personality traits, and beliefs about others' social behaviour influence how we process information about environmental threats such as climate change and fossil fuel-based energy production. Dr Leviston's current research investigates the Australian public's response to climate change, including adaptation literacy, pro-environmental behaviour, and coping.

Representative publications

David Pannell

Professor and Head of School, School of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

David Pannell is Professor and Head of School of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Western Australia; Director, Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy; ARC Federation Fellow (2007-2012); Distinguished Fellow and past president of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society; and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. He has been a prominent commentator on environmental policy within Australia, arguing for policies that better reflect scientific, economic and social realities. He was a director on the Board of Land and Water Australia 2002-05. His research includes the economics of land and water conservation; environmental policy; farmer adoption of conservation practices; risk; and economics of farming systems. His research has been published in seven books and 200 journal articles and book chapters, and has been recognised with awards from the USA, Australia, Canada and the UK, including the 2009 ARC Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Research.

Representative publications

Steven Schilizzi

Associate Professor, School of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

Steven Schilizzi’s current research interests focus around two main problems: first, to understand what factors explain bidding behaviour and bidder participation in competitive tenders used for environmental conservation, and their resulting economic performance; and second, to understand what factors explain people’s views of “what’s fair” (or equitable) in connection with resource allocation or distribution of burdens, and how that interacts with resource use efficiency. Both research programs rely heavily on experimental research, in the lab but also in the field. Steven will be supervising a PhD student who will be using experiments to study whether competitive tenders can enhance the willingness of participants to collaborate in situations of joint-benefit co-production, while another (using e.g. insights from cooperative game theory) will study which design and operational factors contribute best to the success of agricultural cooperatives.

Representative publications

Sorada Tapsuwan

Research Scientist, Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, CSIRO
CSIRO personal page

Representative publications

I am a resource economist with a specialization in non-market valuation of environmental assets. My research interests include understanding why people value the environment, and what are the factors that affect people’s willingness to pay for environmental assets. I’m particularly interested in exploring how socio-economic factors and social psychological factors play a role in influencing people’s preferences for the environment, and how to design incentives to engage people in pro-environmental behaviour. I have worked across many research domains, including marine park management, urban water demand and supply management, rural and irrigation water management, transportation choice, land use management, technology adoption, and climate change.

Representative publications

Iain Walker

Professor and programme leader, Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, CSIRO
CSIRO personal page

Research interests

I am a research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's national science body. My major research interests are in social sciences and sustainability, the social psychology of intergroup relations (especially prejudice and stereotyping), and relative deprivation and social justice. My work is aimed at applying social scientific knowledge to pressing social issues, from prejudice to climate change, and understanding and engaging with processes of social practice and social change. Behind this lurks a broader concern with developing a better theoretical understanding of sociality and the interplay between theory and practice. My overarching science goal is to develop a coherent account of sociality to allow for more potent and durable environmental, social, and behavioural change. My current research efforts include a long-term project on public understandings of climate change, a new project investigating the links between ecosystem services and human wellbeing in an integrated water resources management context, a newish project looking at social and behavioural interventions to enhance biosecurity, and a nascent project on science and praxis. I co-authored with Martha Augoustinos and Ngaire Donaghue 'Social cognition: An integrated introduction' (3rd ed., 2014), co-edited with Heather Smith 'Relative deprivation theory: Specification, development, integration' (2002) and with Gail Moloney 'Social representations and identity: Content, process, and power' (2007), and written and co-written about 150 chapters, papers, conference papers, and reports. Prior to joining CSIRO, I was a Professor of Psychology at Murdoch University, where I also served as Dean of the School of Psychology and as Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Representative publications

Susie Wang

PhD Candidate, School of Psychology, UWA
UWA personal page

Research interests

I am a social and environmental psychology PhD student at UWA and have a studentship with the CSIRO's Land & Water flagship. My research focuses on the psychological and social factors that predict engagement with climate change and pro-environmental behaviours. I am currently exploring ideas such as psychological distance, construal level, field theory, embodied cognition and social networks. The scope of my research, and my interest in behavioural economics extends to areas such as discounting (time, and other types of discounting, such as social and spatial), cognitive biases, and public goods games. In 2014, I tutored the third year Behavioural Economics unit at UWA (PSYC3310 Special Topics), and held a seminar on social preferences in decision-making.


Copyright Notice: Some of the documents listed above are available for downloading. These have been provided as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be re-posted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.