Conference Organizers:
Cuimin Ba, University of Pittsburgh
John Conlon, Carnegie Mellon University
Luca Henkel, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Alex Imas, University of Chicago
Andreas Kraft, University of Chicago
Mattie Toma, University of Warwick

Reviewing Committee:
Peter Andre, Goethe University Frankfurt
Kevin He, University of Pennsylvania
Alejandro Martinez-Marquina, University of Southern California
Suanna Oh, Paris School of Economics

The Early Career Behavioral Economics Conference (ECBE) brings together early-career behavioral and experimental economics researchers, providing a platform for them to share their work and receive feedback. ECBE aims to strengthen ties between researchers from different institutions and develop a strong community of behavioral economists. This year’s conference, hosted by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, will be held July 9-10 at the University of Chicago.

This conference is by invitation only. If you have any questions or are interested in attending, please email bfi-events@uchicago.edu.

Presentation Format:
15-minute presentations and 5-minute Q&A

Agenda

Thursday, July 9, 2026
9:00 am–9:30 am

Breakfast and Registration

6th Floor Kapani Family Lounge

9:30 am–9:40 am

Welcome Remarks

9:40 am–11:00 am

Session 1: Media and Online Discourse

Session chair: Cuimin Ba, University of Pittsburgh

The Business of the Culture War
Shakked Noy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

News Customization with AI
Fabian Roeben, University of Cologne

Social Media Comments
Lena Song, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

AI Sycophancy and Decisions
John Conlon, Carnegie Mellon University

11:00 am–11:30 am

Break

11:30 am–12:30 pm

Session 2: Policy Views and Climate Politics

Session chair: Cuimin Ba, University of Pittsburgh

Bad News and Policy Views
Michael Thaler, University College London

Reaching Across the Aisle: Polarization and Grassroots Climate Mobilization
Lucy Page, University of Pittsburgh

Got Beef with Beef? Large-scale evidence that carbon labels yield limited climate benefits and cause backlash
Lisa Ho, Columbia University

12:30 pm–1:50 pm

Lunch

First Floor Dining Room

1:50 pm–2:50 pm

Session 3: Beliefs

​Session chair: Luca Henkel, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Do People Hold Economic Expectations?
Luca Michels, University of Bonn

Beliefs About Disability
Mattie Toma, University of Warwick

Recovering Economic Preferences under Behavioral Attenuation Bias
Keyu Wu, University of Zurich

2:50 pm–3:40 pm

Break

3:40 pm–5:00 pm

Session 4: Deception and Fairness

Session chair: Luca Henkel, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Excluding Flawed but Useful Information for Fair Allocation Decisions
Yucheng Liang, Carnegie Mellon University

Deception Aversion
Evan Friedman, Paris School of Economics

Equilibrium Neglect and Political Feasibility
Bnaya Dreyfuss, Harvard University Learning

Self-Preserving Redistribution: Global Experimental Evidence
Morten Nyborg Stostad, Norwegian School of Economics

6:30 pm

Conference Dinner

By invitation only

Friday, July 10, 2026
9:00 am–9:30 am

Breakfast

6th Floor Kapani Family Lounge

9:30 am–10:30 am

Session 5: Mental Models and Categorization

Session chair: John Conlon, Carnegie Mellon University

A Criterion of Model Decisiveness
Jeffrey Yang, University of California, Santa Barbara

Strategically Controlling Worldviews
Cuimin Ba, University of Pittsburgh

Categorical Thinking: Consumer Thresholds and Firm Response
Andreas Kraft, University of Chicago

10:30 am–11:00 am

Break

11:00 am–12:00 pm

Session 6: Learning

Session chair: John Conlon, Carnegie Mellon University

Attention and Social Learning
Kevin He, University of Pennsylvania

Robustly Non-Harmful Information for Biased Learners
Malte Kornemann, University of Bonn

Learning and Limitations of Heuristic Pricing: Evidence from Forced Exploration
Avner Strulov Shlain, University of Chicago

12:00 pm–1:00 pm

Lunch

First Floor Dining Room

1:00 pm–2:00 pm

Session 7: Commitment, Defaults, and Dynamic Choice

Session chair: Mattie Toma, University of Warwick

State Dependence and Commitment: Experimental Evidence from Crop Insurance in Uganda
Sili Zhang, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Self-Control and Commitment in Consumer Credit Markets
Ke Shi, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Like There is No Tomorrow
Alejandro Martinez-Marquina, University of Southern California

2:00 pm–2:30 pm

Break

2:30 pm–3:30 pm

Session 8: Gender and Labor Supply

Session chair: Mattie Toma, University of Warwick

A Free Lunch? How Changing Childcare Defaults Increases Parental Labor Supply
Justus Bamert, Princeton University

The Female Labor Supply Constraints of Spousal Jealousy: Experimental Evidence from India
Kailash Rajah, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Power of Gender-Diverse Peer Groups: Evidence from a
Multi-Year Field Experiment

Xiaoyue Shan, National University of Singapore

3:30 pm

Conference Concludes