Colin Camerer
Director, T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
Colin Camerer is Caltech's Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Economics. He earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1981 and was at Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Chicago before joining the Caltech faculty in 1994. He was the past president of the Economic Science Association and the Society for Neuroeconomics, was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2013. He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and authored or edited four books.
The Camerer group uses a wide variety of lab and field methods to study the computations that result in goal-directed human economic and social decisions, including strategic interactions and market trading. His group's functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) projects have isolated the basis of self-control when faced with tempting foods, emotional regulation in dealing with financial loss, how curiosity increases learning, and the neural circuitry underlying the life cycle of stock market bubbles. Their group has also used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to causally influence choice, eyetracking to measure attention, behavior of patients with brain lesions to understand altruism and fear.
Publications
- Wang, Stephanie W.;Camerer, Colin F. (2024) Allocators are more prosocial when affected agents can visually eavesdropJournal of Economic Behavior & Organization
- Holzmeister, Felix;Johannesson, Magnus et al. (2024) Examining the replicability of online experiments selected by a decision marketNature Human Behaviour
- Chapman, Jonathan;Snowberg, Erik et al. (2024) Looming Large or Seeming Small? Attitudes Towards Losses in a Representative SampleReview of Economic Studies
- Brown, Alexander L.;Imai, Taisuke et al. (2024) Meta-analysis of Empirical Estimates of Loss AversionJournal of Economic Literature
- Camerer, Colin;Xin, Yi et al. (2024) A neural autopilot theory of habit: Evidence from consumer purchases and social media useJournal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
- Buyalskaya, Anastasia;Ho, Hung et al. (2023) What can machine learning teach us about habit formation? Evidence from exercise and hygieneProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Camerer, Colin F. (2022) The apparent prevalence of outcome variation from hidden "dark methods" is a challenge for social scienceProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Yang, Ruihan;Ma, Yina et al. (2022) Dynamic neural reconfiguration for distinct strategies during competitive social interactionsNeuroImage
- Li, Xiaomin;Camerer, Colin F. (2022) Predictable Effects of Visual Salience in Experimental Decisions and GamesQuarterly Journal of Economics
- Tashjian, Sarah M.;Fedrigo, Virginia et al. (2022) Physiological Responses to a Haunted-House Threat Experience: Distinct Tonic and Phasic EffectsPsychological Science