Deal or No Deal?

29 September 2016

On Wednesday 27 September, the Business and Economics Department welcomed a wonderful guest speaker to Stowe to talk about a new topic to the AQA Economics curriculum; Behavioural Economics. Dr Richard Fairchild, Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath School of Management delivered an informative and engaging presentation of this evolving mix of modern economic theory, psychology and the emerging field of Neuroeconomics.

It was wonderful to see over 80 Stoics in attendance, joined by 28 pupils from The Royal Latin School, Buckingham. Ben Skinner (Upper Sixth, Grenville) and Kurt Leimer (Upper Sixth, Chandos) helped to host the open lecture and ensured our visiting guests were well looked after.

Dr Fairchild guided pupils through the maze of Homo Economicus vs. Homo Sapiens economic decision making preferences, and demonstrated how perceived rational behaviour can really be bounded rationality, overconfidence and emotions that affect our decision making processes. He even explained the links between fatigue and irrational decision making.

The talk ended with a competition between Stoics and our friends from the Royal Latin School; behavioural game theory was demonstrated through a wonderful activity resulting in some rather underhanded negotiations on the part of some pupils; all in good fun in the interest of pursuing a better understanding of the wonderful world of behavioural economics.
After Dr Fairchild’s presentation, representative Stoics from the Upper Sixth accompanied Royal Latin pupils to supper to continue the discussions on the role of behavioural economics in modern business.

Gordon West, Business and Economics Department