Behavioral & Experimental Economics

Jessica WhitePh.D.

Assistant Professor of Economics

Department of Business Administration & Economics · Saint Mary's College

I study how people actually make economic decisions — not the frictionless optimizers of the textbook, but real people navigating uncertainty, habit, and social context. My work uses controlled experiments to test where standard models hold, where they break, and what that means for policy and everyday choice.

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01 — About

Background

I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at Saint Mary's College, where I teach microeconomic theory and lead courses in behavioral and environmental economics. I came to Saint Mary's by way of my own undergraduate education here — an unusual and, for me, meaningful return.

My research sits at the intersection of behavioral and experimental economics. I design laboratory and field experiments to examine how individuals form preferences, respond to incentives, and depart from the predictions of standard rational-choice models. The questions I find most compelling are the ones where small changes in framing, defaults, or social information produce disproportionately large changes in behavior.

In the classroom, I bring that same experimental orientation. Students run markets, play games, and generate their own data before they see the theory that is supposed to describe it — an approach that consistently makes abstract models feel earned rather than asserted.

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02 — Research

Research

Experimental approaches to decision-making under uncertainty, social influence, and incentive design.

Publications & working papers

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03 — Teaching

Teaching

Courses recently taught at Saint Mary's College.

Courses

  • Principles of Microeconomics
    Scarcity, markets, and the logic of individual choice — the foundation course.
  • Intermediate Microeconomics
    Consumer and producer theory, market structure, and welfare analysis.
  • Behavioral Economics
    What psychology adds to economic models of choice, and where the two disciplines meet.
  • Environmental Economics
    Externalities, valuation, and policy instruments for environmental problems.
04 — CV

Curriculum vitae

A complete record of education, appointments, publications, presentations, and service.

Download the full CV

PDF

Download CV (PDF)
05 — Contact

Get in touch

Office
356 Spes Unica Hall
Professional