B. Douglas Bernheim

B. Douglas Bernheim's picture
Edward Ames Edmonds Professor in Economics, Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Stanford University
Professor Bernheim’s work has spanned a variety of fields, including public economics, behavioral economics, game theory, contract theory, industrial organization, political economy, and financial economics. His notable contributions include the following: in the area of game theory, introducing and exploring the concepts of rationalizability (thereby helping to launch the field of epistemic game theory), coalition-proofness, and collective dynamic consistency (also known as renegotiation-proofness); in the area of incentive theory, introducing and exploring the concepts of common agency and menu auctions, and developing a theory of incomplete contracts; in the area of industrial organization, developing theories of multimarket contact and exclusive dealing; concerning social motives in economics, introducing and exploring the concept of strategic bequest motives, and developing theories of conformity, Veblen effects, and the equal division norm; developing and applying a framework for behavioral welfare economics; developing an economic theory of addictive behaviors; conducting the earliest economic analyses of financial education; and analyzing the conceptual foundations for Ricardian equivalence.

Related Publications

January 2023

Theoretical Economics