FRONTIER RESEARCH, GLOBAL IMPACT.

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Research Briefs·Sep 30, 2026

The AGI Race and Existential Risk

Competition among firms developing artificial general intelligence can encourage them to prioritize speed over safety, increasing the risk of a catastrophic outcome. Industry consolidation, regulation facilitating commitment to slow down, and governments entering the race in a safe way improves...
Research Briefs·Sep 29, 2026

Evaluating the Spatial Consequences of a Climate Tipping Point

What Is the AMOC?  The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) carries warm, salty surface water from the subtropics toward the North Atlantic, where the water cools, sinks, and flows back south. The delivery of warm water north helps keep Western...
Podcasts episode·Sep 29, 2026

Why Your Raise Didn’t Keep Up with Inflation

By 2024, inflation was falling and unemployment was low, yet consumer confidence had sunk to levels last seen during the Great Recession. In this episode, Erik Hurst of Chicago Booth and his co-author Christina Patterson draw on payroll records for...
Research Briefs·Sep 24, 2026

How Disability Benefits in Early Life Affect Adult Outcomes

Receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in childhood increases children’s earnings in adulthood when parents continue working (and therefore total household income increases), but has zero or negative effects when parents offset the transfer by reducing their earnings. This suggests that...

Latest Frontier Research

BFI Working Paper·Sep 30, 2026

Group Beliefs

We extend the frameworks of Harsanyi (1967) and Mertens and Zamir (1985) to study the higher-order beliefs that groups of individuals obtain by pooling their information. A universal group type space is constructed, which contains all of the belief hierarchies...
BFI Working Paper·Sep 30, 2026

Participation Security and Elementary Mechanisms

A mechanism is participation secure if each agent has an action that guarantees them a payoff better than their outside option, no matter how other agents behave and no matter how uncertainty about preferences is resolved. Participation security implies that...
BFI Working Paper·Sep 28, 2026

Crime in Covid Times

What caused the historically unique volatility in American homicides since 2019, driven by gun homicides? While there is no shortage of candidate explanations, a coherent understanding has been elusive because of the widely held view that gun violence, like other...

Past Events

Sep 28
Workshops·Sep 28, 2026, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Fall 2026 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

by Francesca Bastianello and Avner Strulov-Shlain
Sep 24
Academic Conferences·Sep 24, 2026, 9:00 AM·University of Chicago | David Rubenstein Forum | Room 601 1201 E 60th St, Chicago, IL 60637

2026 IO+ Conference

by Milena Almagro, Jacob Conway, and Eric Richert
Sep 23
Academic Conferences·Sep 23, 2026, 9:00 AM·NCAA Hall of Champions and Conference Center | 700 W. Washington St. | Indianapolis, IN 46204

Science of Philanthropy Initiative (SPI) Conference 2026

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Upcoming Events

Oct 2
Academic Conferences·Oct 2, 2026, 9:00 AM·David Rubenstein Forum, University of Chicago

2026 IOG Fall Conference

Organizers: Marianne Bertrand, Oeindrila Dube, Torsten Persson, and Francesco Trebbi
Oct 2
Workshops·Oct 2, 2026, 12:45 PM·Saieh Hall for Economics, Rm 021 , 5757 S. University, Chicago, IL, United States, 60637

Fall 2026 Development Lunch Workshop

Organizers: Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane, and Eduardo Montero
Oct 5
Workshops·Oct 5, 2026, 12:00 PM·Charles M. Harper Center | Room 3B

Fall 2026 Behavioral Economics Seminar Series

Organizers: Francesca Bastianello and Avner Strulov-Shlain
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About BFI

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About the Becker Friedman Institute

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...
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Our Legacy

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.

Our Team

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