A list of some tutorial topics that I used for one-hour tutorials in the early days of teaching material that is covered in Principles of Behavioral Economics is available here (with some notes regarding the final one on that list, which is on the ecnomics of recovering from a major earthquake). The tutorials listed below were, by contrast, designed for use in two-hour teaching blocks, though many of them can be covered in around 90 minutes. Except for tutorials 3b and 4, they were all used in class while the book was being written, with the tutorial groups consisting of up to 25 students who received a participation mark of up to 10% towards their final grades.
The tutorials below involve open-ended discussion tasks and activities that take place partly in small groups (with the tutor circulating between the small groups) and full-group segments. Instructors should be careful in their choices of tutors, as tutors who are successful at handling deterministic exercises and ‘problem sets’ may not always be very good at dealing with open-ended problems. In making my course work at the University of Queensland I handled all the tutorial groups myself for the first few years as enrolments grew steadily and then was able to get the coordinator of tutorial program in the School of Economics to allocate to the course tutors who were senior students who had done well on the course in previous years and who thus had first-hand experience of how I ran the course. These tended to be high-flying students who were doing dual law/economics degrees over five years, rather than those focusing purely on economics who had strong quantitative skills but less experience in constructing arguments. We usually had a one-hour meeting at the start of each week but, having already experienced the course, they did not require further training sessions.
For some parts of the course, I offer alternative tutorial topics/slides. As I note below, some of the tutorials can be used at other points in the tutorial program.
Tutorial 1: Mobile Phone and University Choice
This tutorial works well as an introductory ‘ice-breaker’ session in which students and tutor can start to get to know each other by reflecting on two very different but familiar areas of choice even if some of the class have not yet read Chapter 1 of Principles of Behavioral Economics and perhaps in some cases have enrolled late after missing the first lecture. Tutorial slidese are available here.
Tutorial 2: Using Repertory Grid and Laddering Techniques to Map How We See Alternatives
This tutorial applies the techniques introduced in Section 2.10 of Principles of Behavioral Economics and if held in week 3 it provides a means of keeping the ingredients from personal construct psychology in class ahead of introducing Kelly’s theory in Week 4. However, it can also be used later, to augment material in week 4/Chapter 4, or even a bit later, closer to where the construct laddering idea resurfaces in week 7/Chapter 7. Tutorial slides are available here.
Tutorial 3a: Creative Destruction and the Institutions of Retailing
This tutorial provides an opportunity to apply a variety of ideas from Chapter 3 of Principles of Behavioral Economics, bringing together the information and cognitive challenges that buyers face and the challenges that retailers face due to innovations in both the products they sell and in ways of running a retail outlet. It could also be used as a micro–meso-macro case study in the Tutorial 11 slot. The slides, which are available here, probably include an excess of things to discuss for even a two-hour session. Most of the photographs in the slides were taken in Stevenage, my home town in the UK, an old coaching town with a long high street of inns and shops, which was greatly expanded as on of the post-World War II ‘new towns’ in the 1950s-1970s. It was one of the first towns to feature a large pedestrian shopping precinct, but half a century later this shopping centre was struggling against competition from more recent retailing innovations. There is plenty of video material on YouTube on the history of retailing that could be used to supplement this tutorial.
Tutorial 3b: Coordination Challenges in Building a New York Skyscraper
This tutorial provides a different way of exploring many of the sources of real-world problems explored in Chapter 3 ofd Principles of Behavioral Economics, with an emphasis on how chaos can arise in complex systems of linked elements when surprises occur. The case study is available here. This case study could also provide the basis for an alternative Tutorial 10. Indeed, on might develop it into two tutorials, with Tutorial 3 using Sections 1-4 of the case and Tutorial 10 using Sections 4-7. The 1989 TV series that inspired me to write the case (via Karl Sabbagh’s book Skyscraper based on the series) is available via Amazon Prime, see https://www.amazon.com/Skyscraper-Part-1-Paper-Rock/dp/B008VHAUMC.
Tutorial 4: Understanding Adherence to Conspiracy Theories and Delays in Getting Tested and Vaccinated During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Material from Lecture4/Chapter 4 is ripe for application to some of the great disputes of our time where not everyone accepts there is a problem, as with human-induced climate change. The slides available here are for a tutorial of this kind, but with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and the mindset of Trump supporters. The Guardian article available here, on sources of hubris among those who oppose vaccination, could be a useful starting point for discussion of their stance in relation to Kelly’s personal construct psychology.
Tutorial 5a: Economics of Policing, Crime and Punishment
This tutorial provides an opportunity to apply some of the ideas relating to risk and uncertainty that are covered in Chapter 5 of Principles of Behavioral Economics. Tutorial slides are available at here.
Tutorial 5b: Starting a New Law Firm – Potential for Surprise?
Although this tutorial topic should work well in the week after the lecture on risk, surprise and uncertainty, it could also be used in the Tutorial 10 or 11 slots. I designed this tutorial in the days when I taught behavioural economics in a sequence based mainly on when key contributions were made, which meant that much of what became Chapter 10 of Principles of Behavioral Economics came in the first third of the course. The tutorial is about the challenges of starting a new firm even if one has the professional skills and links with clients: in other words, it is an opportunity for drawing on Marshall’s view of the firm, but with an emphasis, via Shackle, on the significance of limits to the imagination in relation to potential for surprises. Slides for the tutorial are available here. The final part takes the class back to the coverage of unusual behavioral methods in Chapter 1 of Principles of Behavioral Economics To run this tutorial, instructors will need to be able to screen episode 5 of season 5 of the TV drama series The Good Wife during the middle section, without infringing copyright. If you can do this, it is likely to prove both popular and instructive with your class. You will need a full two-hour tutorial session to make the most of this, and a few minutes can be saved if you can edit out the sex scene that is part of the episode in question!
Tutorial 6: Procedural Rationality
The major task in the second part of this tutorial focuses on the problem of devising an effective way of going about the process of recruiting academic staff in well-ranked universities that are prone to receive hundreds of applications for positions that they advertise. It has major contrasts with the way that the so-called ‘secretary problem’ is set up. Slides for the tutorial are available here.
Tutorial 7a: Music, Movies and Partying
This tutorial brings together a wide range of material from Lecture 2’s coverage of motivation onwards. It can be used as a follow-up to the Week8 lecture/material covered in Chapter 8 of Principles of Behavioral Economics, but I prefer to run it as a follow-up to Week 7/Cahpter 7. It tends to bring to the surface differences in the value systems of students and related cultural and institutional differences between students from different countries (e.g., in relation to attitudes to illegal downloading of music and video material — though perhaps in these areas the tutor might, in today’s age of cheaper streaming services, invite members of the class to consider what their attitudes would have been if they were in the 1990s/early 2000s where cheap legal streaming was not available). Slides are available here.
Tutorial 7b: Questioning Norms About Having Children and Pets
This tutorial topic provides an opportunity to look ahead to Chapter 13 of Principles of Behavioral Economics, where questions are raised about the environmental impacts of having children and pets. It also provides opportunities to apply ideas from Chapters 2 and 7 about the underlying motivation for our choices and why some things in our lives matter so much to us. The idea of the tutorial would be to consider what underpins choices that many people make to have children and pets, with a focus on whether people are considering opportunity costs or largely following social norms (and perhaps pressure from children to have pets as their peers do). I haven’t prepared any slides for this tutorial; instead I offer a deleted section originally intended to be part of Chapter 13, which is available here.
Tutorial 8a: Applying Behavioural Economics to the Real Estate Sector
The real estate sector provides an excellent area for examining the challenges of coping with major choices and potential for information overload and experience good issues. Slides for this tutorial are available here.
Tutorial 8b: Choices in Relation to Skin Cancer Risks: Sunscreen, Sunglasses and Hats
I was usually surprised to see how few of the students at the University of Queensland were bothering to wear hat and the kind of clothing that would protect their skin against the intense sun. Mostly, it seemed to be the international students that were taking precautions of the kind that I routinely took to limit skin cancer risks. It therefore seemed to be worth having a tutorial that explored how choices get made in this area, and what the policy implications might be. The slides for this tutorial are available here.
Tutorial 9a: Designing Policies to Induce More Eco-Friendly Transportation Choices
This tutorial provides an opportunity to focus on green policymaking in the week following the lecture on influencing behaviour, thereby ensuring that the class gets to consider sustainability issues even if there is no time at the end of the course to have a tutorial after a lecture that covers material from the final chapter of Principles of Behavioral Economics. The focus of the slides that I provide is on how material from Chapters 2-8 may be used to understand underlying reasonswhy many people may resist switching to cycling, walking and using public transport. Tutors will thus have something to keep returning to for critical discussion of whether nudge-stytle suggestions (or applicationis of, say, ideas from Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s book Switch) are likely to be effective. The slides are available here.
Tutorial 9b/10a: Designing Policies to Reduce Attrition Rates Among Students and Improve the Quality of Output from a Factory
This tutorial is designed to show students how nudges and other behavior manipulation tools have relevance in their own lives currently and are not confined to changing consumer behavior. The seccond task encourages students to focus on output quality as an aspect of productivity, thus providing a link between Lecture/Chapters 9 and 10. Tutorial slides are available here.
Tutorial 10b: When to Quit? Spectacular Errors by Australia’s Big-Box Hardware Chains
This tutorial could also work well as an alternative to Tutorial 4, as in many respects it is about mistaken constructs formed by management teams. It could also work as a Tutorial 11 alternative, as it centres on the relationship between a retail ‘meso’ (the giant ‘big-bog’ hardware retail model that originated in North American and has spread internationally) and the ‘transfer process’ in retailing. With the Australian hardware market dominated by the Bunnings chain, owned by the Wesfarmers group that also owns Coles, one of Australia’s two biggest supermarket chains, rival retail giant Woolworths attempted to establish itself in the hardware sector by creating the Masters chain, a venture that proved to be a very expensive mistake. But Bunnings then made losses on a similar scale when it sought to transfer its business model to the UK hardware retailing sector. Slides for this tutorial are available here. Prior to the tutorial, I asked students to read background press reports such as those available at the following links: https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/were-all-in-trouble-if-bunnings-keeps-dominating-masters/news-story/deb0f1abf8df5b632059a8316b19eb25, https://retailrockstars.com.au/couldnt-beat-bunnings-masters-hardware-store-debacle/, https://theconversation.com/masters-was-spoiled-from-the-start-now-woolworths-must-go-back-to-basics-53282, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-03/how-the-failure-of-masters-could-help-bunnings-succeed-in-uk/7138132, https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/worse-than-masters-wesfarmers-british-bunnings-nightmare-deepens-20180206-p4yzim.html and https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/going-off-script-how-the-1-7b-bunnings-uk-disaster-unfolded-20180528-p4zhvw.html. There is a useful Wikipedia entry on the Masters debacle, with further links, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_Home_Improvement and a video analysis at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxzaNsdMTc.
Tutorial 11a: Evolution of Firms and Products in the Electronic Music Equipment Industry
I could not resist the temptation to design a tutorial relating to Alfred Marshall’s evolutionary view of the firm, and Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’ view of competition, that focused on the evolution of an industry in which another famous Marshall was a key entrepreneur. From there, the idea for the tutorial grew to include the evolution of two other pioneering firms in the same sector, that had very different histories, namely Charlie Watkins’s WEM company (that pioneered high-powered PA systems) and the Australian firm Fairlight (that pioneered digital sampling keyboards). For historical material on the Marshall amplifier company, click here and here. Very useful histories of Watkins’s WEM company can be found here and here, giving a very good sense of the creative problem-solving processes and competitiive pressures that led to the firm’s innovations. For background on the story of Fairlight, clicj here. Slides for this tutorial are available at here.
Tutorial 11b/12a: The Behavior of Bankers
This tutorial provides students with an opportunity to apply behavioral ideas to the ways that bankers take lending decisions, how banks set their prices (interest rates particularly) and invites them to reflect on the remuneraiton of bankers. Slides are available here and material from my 1990 book Monetary Scenarios (that attempted to bring behavioral economics and Post Keynesian monetary economics together) may also be useful here – on page 204 of that book there is a diagram adapting normal cost analysis to banking. In relation to the final slide, instructors may provoke lively discussion if they ask their students to read the short piece here that notes an argument from within the banking community (by Anthony Smouha, a Cambridge economics contemporary of mine) that challenges the idea that bankers’ bonuses are earned on the basis of special capabilities.
Tutorial 12b: Some Revision Practice for the Final Examination
I normally use all or a major part o of the final week of tutorials to get the class into exam revision mode. Click here for an example of question slides and here for notes on these questions. These notes are from the class of 2018, when my students only had access to some early chapters of Principles of Behaviorla Economics and their required reading was Thaler’s Misbehaving. My strategy usually was to have the students discuss two questions in small-group mode, followed by full-group discussion and my comments, then back into small groups for the next two questions, and so on.
An Alternative Approach to Tutorials 9-11
An alternative way to build Tutorials 9-11 is around a mock ‘Nudgeathon’ competition between small groups within each tutorial and to build a final coursework assignment around Chapters 10-13 of Principles of Behavioral Economics without using tutorials to explore and apply material from those chapters. Instructors who are transitioning into teaching the approach taken in the book and who are more confident with their expertise in ‘new’ behavioral economics may find this strategy appealing until they become more comfortable with the behavioral economics of firms and industrial change. If the mock ‘Nudgathon’ approach is taken, the best teams from each of the tutorial groups could be given the chance to play off against each other in part of the final week’s lecture time for the course. The challenge for tutors if this strategy is adopted, as when coaching a team for the actual Nudgeathon, is to ensure that their policy proposals are grounded in behavioral principles rather than ‘person in the street’ thinking.
The Australian ‘Nudgeathon’ competition has been run by behavioural economists at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) from 2017, where the teams were tasked with designing a policy for promoting increased volunteering activities by people in the 18-30 age group.
In 2019, students in my class were given the 2018 Nudgeathon task to work on in their tutorials. The 2018 task focused on how to nudge consumers to make greater use of comparison sites with which they might need to share peresonal financial or household utility usage information in order to get the best benefit from these sites. Presentation videos from the actual competition can be found here and the Australian Government Treasury document around which the task was built is available here. We used Tutorial 9b as a kind of policy-design warm-up, and then spent Tutorial 10 for the teams to understand the policy-design task and commence work on their pitches, with then then giving their presentations in Tutorial 11; we hoped that the teams would put in a bit of work on the task between the two tutorials. The slides used for Tutorial 10 (and as a refresher at the start of Tutorial 11) are available here.
The 2019 Nudgeathon focused on the problem of getting greater uptake of a restorative justice program. Material is available here and includes team presentation videos and submissions. Clearly, with these past presentations now being readily available online, instructors who wish to ensure that their students do original Nudgeathon-style activities in a tutorial setting will need to devise their own policy challenge settings for their classes. The videos, etc., would make great preparatory material for the students in their classes. The Australian Nudgeathons organized by QUT are related to those initiated by a team at the University of Warwick’s Business School in the UK: see https://www.nudgeathon.com/about/. A final note: if you are searching on Google for Nudgeathon material, take care with your spelling: searching for ‘nudgathon’ will take you elsewhere!
Peter E. Earl -- Eclectic Real-World Economics 