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Assistant Professor of Economics

Professor Chen's research blurs traditional boundaries in both subject and methodology, bringing unorthodox tools to bear on problems at the intersection of Economics, Psychology, and Biology. In a recent project, he measured what ex-prisoners' lives would have looked like had prison conditions been more or less harsh. In another project, he demonstrated the ability of Tamarin Monkeys to master complex repeated food-exchange games, displaying a game-theoretic acumen previously thought unique to humans. Most recently, Professor Chen has shown that when allowed to make purchasing decisions, Capuchin Monkeys display many of the hallmark biases of human behavior, suggesting that some of our most fundamental biases are evolutionarily ancient. This year Professor Chen will teach Economic Analysis, Negotiating Strategy, and Behavioral Economics.

Selected Articles
"Do Harsher Prison Conditions Reduce Recidivism? A Discontinuity-Based Approach" (with J. Shapiro), American Law and Economic Review, June, 2007

"How Basic are Behavioral Biases? Evidence from Capuchin-Monkey Trading Behavior" (with V. Lakshminarayanan and L. Santos), Journal of Political Economy, June, 2006

"Some Thoughts on the Adaptive Function of Inequity Aversion: An Alternative to Brosnan's Social Hypothesis" (with L. Santos), Social Justice Research, June, 2006

"Modeling Reciprocation and Cooperation in Primates: Evidence for a Punishing Strategy" (with M. Hauser), Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2005

"Give Unto Others: Genetically Unrelated Cotton-top Tamarin Monkeys Preferentially Give Food to Those Who Altruistically Give Food Back" (with M.D. Hauser, F. Chen and E. Chuang), Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2003

Working Papers
"The Taste for Leisure and the Returns to Education" (with J. Chevalier)

"One-Way Essential Complements" (with B. Nalebuff)

"Do States Swing Together? Evidence From Political Prediction Markets" (with J.E. Ingersoll and E.H. Kaplan)

"Agendas in Multi-Issue Bargaining"

Education
PhD Harvard University, 2003
BS Stanford University, 1998