• Experimental and behavioral economics
• Foundations of theories of decision making under risk
• Game theory, auctions, and procurement contracting
• Applications of behavioral economics to healthcare delivery
• Economics of electronic commerce and automated agent technology
• Economics of trust, reciprocity and altruism
• Digital libraries that incorporate interactive software and automated agents

Decision making under risk is ubiquitous in economic, medical and military contexts.  Our theoretical and experimental research addresses plausibility problems with prominent models of decision under risk that are widely applied in these important contexts.  Problems made apparent by concavity and convexity calibration are especially severe in the presence of scale differences between experiment data and field applications. Our experimental research on trust and reciprocity has led us to develop new theory for decision making environments characterized by opportunities for reciprocal altruism and new protocols for the identification of trust and trustworthiness.  Collaborative research in applications of behavioral economics to healthcare delivery shows promise of new approaches to containing costs while maintaining quality.  Collaborative research on cooperative behavior in private and common property settings provides insights into how community collective action depends critically on the design of institutions that allows for transparency as well as control over the exploitive powers associated with agents with adminnistrative control. 

We are simultaneously pursuing frontier research and developing new methods for teaching economics. Experimental economics provides the foundation for both activities. In research, experiments with human subjects support current development of economics as an empirical science. In teaching, experiments support active learning by students. Both research and teaching experiments are conducted in our physical laboratory and on the virtual laboratory contained in EconPort, our active-objects digital library of economics. We are currently involved in a multi-year series of National Dissemination Workshops that teach university and college faculty how to use EconPort in their teaching and research.

Georgia’s research universities and the Georgia Research Alliance provide strong institutional and financial support for innovative research. They add resources to those provided by grants from external sources rather than extracting resources from the grants, as is often done elsewhere.