Curiosity is fundamental to young children’s learning, yet no brief, validated behavioral measure of epistemic curiosity is designed for field-based research with preschool-aged children. This article describes the development and validation of the Animal Game, a 10-trial behavioral task, that...

We study the optimal design and analysis of experiments for estimating spillover effects. Assuming a known (e.g., linear) exposure mapping, we characterize the treatment-assignment distribution and regression-based estimator that minimize worst-case asymptotic variance against a broad class of distributions of...

Firms face a critical trade-off when allocating scarce human capital between technological and social innovation. While the role of human capital in technological innovation is well established, its influence on social innovation and the strategic interplay between the two remain...

The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...

Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.

University of Chicago faculty members and other accomplished economists set the goals and direction of the Institute.

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