ISET is proud to announce that on Thursday, August 13th, 2015 our alumnus Lasha Lanchava defended his Ph.D titled “Essays in Behavioral Economics” at CERGE-EI (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute). 

His dissertation consisted of three experimental studies including a field work, a laboratory experiment, and an a detailed analysis of a natural experiment.

The dissertation committee was comprised of Peter Katuščák (chair), Michal Bauer, Libor Dušek, Randall K. Filer and Avner Shaked.

The first chapter of his work linked two literature strands, providing experimental evidence regarding the intergenerational transmission of other-regarding preferences and offering new insights about where these preferences originate.

The second chapter aimed to understand how people behave when their choice autonomy is threatened. Despite much empirical evidence in the field of psychology, there has been no economic study evaluating freedom of choice. This chapter brought well known concept of psychological reactance in social psychology into the field of economics, testing the economic significance of the theory.

Finally, his third chapter of the dissertation exploited a natural experiment that occurred in Georgia. It implemented a difference-in-differences methodology to study whether a religious appeal by an influential religious leader affected childbearing decisions.

ISET and ISET Policy Institute staff congratulates Lasha Lanchava for his successful Ph.D. defense and sincerely wishes him further accomplishments in his professional career!

Full text of his dissertation can be found here