Description

The Price Theory Initiative supports innovative research that examines behavior through the lens of markets, prices, and incentives. Programs prepare emerging scholars to work creatively in this productive vein.

Faculty research explores topics such as education, marriage, crime and corruption, addiction, health decisions, and political bias and ideological segregation in the media. An important strand of the initiative uses field experiments to understand economic behavior by collecting data in natural settings. Graduate students working with the program also study voting behavior and the impact of social norms on environmental behavior.

“Chicago Price Theory holds the idea that economic tools provide a powerful analysis that can explain what is going on in the world; the range of topics is diverse and virtually limitless.”

Steve Levitt, Co-Director

The Price Theory Scholars program invites promising graduate students from other schools to spend time at UChicago, working closely with faculty to learn this approach and advance their own research. Participants say the experience gives them a unique perspective that enriches and shapes their research well into their careers. Each year, the Price Theory Summer Camp offers these graduate students from across the country a short but intensive immersion in price theory and a chance to learn from leading UChicago faculty.  

Master Class in Chicago Price Theory

Explore the principles of price theory with this master class, based on the renowned University of Chicago PhD course and Chicago Price Theory textbook. Using real-world applications, build a powerful analytical toolkit and learn how to analyze and predict human behavior in markets through practical lessons that bring economic theory to life.

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