Thomas F. Epper
{#firstname}.{#lastname}[at]cnrs.fr

About me

I am a Research Director at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research; LEM - UMR 9221) and Co-Director of the iRisk Research Center on Risk and Uncertainty, France.

I am also a Full Professor of Economics at the IÉSEG School of Management (Lille & Paris), an associated member of the Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI), Copenhagen (Denmark), and a network member of the Risk, Insurance and Savings Laboratory (RISLαβ).

My research expertise lies in the realm of economic decision-making under risk and uncertainty, intertemporal choice, and inequality and redistribution. Melding economic theory with quantitative methods, I delve into a diverse range of data, from broad population experiments to detailed administrative registers to financial, betting and insurance markets. As an educator, I have taught courses in decision theory/analysis, information economics, health economics, programming methods, statistics, empirical methods, data analytics, preference elicitation and survey methodology.

Papers1

  • Measuring Hearts and Minds: A Validated Survey on Altruism and Inequality Aversion, with Ivan Mitrouchev.
    • in preparation
    • Keywords: Inequality, altruism, survey module.
  • Do Monetary Incentives Matter for Identifying Social Preferences?, with Ernst Fehr, Julien Senn and Aljosha Henkel.
    • Keywords: social preferences, incentives.
  • The Fundamental Properties, Stability, and Predictive Power of Distributional Preferences, with Ernst Fehr and Julien Senn.
    • working paper
    • Keywords: other-regarding preferences, preference heterogeneity, Bayesian nonparametrics, machine learning.
  • Dynamic Pricing in Bilateral Relationships: Experimental Evidence, with Stefan Buehler, Nicolas Eschenbaum and Roberta Koch.
    • working paper
    • Keywords: dynamic pricing, commitment, Coasian dynamics, durable goods, rental goods.
  • Beliefs about Inequality and the Nature of Support for Redistribution, with Ernst Fehr, Aljosha Henkel and Julien Senn.
  • Inequality Aversion Predicts Support for Public and Private Redistribution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 121(39), 2024, with Ernst Fehr, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Søren Leth-Petersen, Isabel Skak Olufsen and Peer Ebbesen Skov.
    • published version
    • Keywords: social preferences, inequality aversion, external validity.
  • Social Preferences and Redistributive Politics, forthcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics, with Ernst Fehr and Julien Senn.
    • working paper
    • Keywords: other-regarding preferences, inequality, redistribution, voting.
  • Bounded Rationality in Risky Choice over Money and Effort, with Alexander Koch and Julia Nafziger.
    • Keywords: asset integration, description invariance, reference dependence, choice bracketing.
  • Risk in Time: The Intertwined Nature of Risk Taking and Time Discounting, Journal of the European Economic Association, 22(1), pp.310-354, 2024, with Helga Fehr-Duda.
  • Parenting Values and the Intergenerational Transmission of Time Preferences, European Economic Review, 148, 2022, with Anne Ardila Brenøe.
    • published version
    • Keywords: parenting style, parental involvement, patience, preference transmission, socio-economic status, family background.
  • Preferences Predict Who Commits Crime Among Young Men, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 119(6), 2022, with Ernst Fehr, Kristoffer Balle Hvidberg, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Søren Leth-Petersen and Gregers Nytoft Rasmussen.
    • published version; appendix
    • Keywords: risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences, delinquency, criminal offences, external validity.
  • Time Discounting and Wealth Inequality, American Economic Review, 110(4), pp.1177-1205, 2020, with Ernst Fehr, Helga Fehr-Duda, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, David Dreyer Lassen, Søren Leth-Petersen and Gregers Nytoft Rasmussen.
  • The Uncertainty Triangle: Uncovering Heterogeneity in Attitudes Towards Uncertainty, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 60(2), pp.125-156, 2020, with Dan Burghart and Ernst Fehr.
    • published version; supplementary material
    • Keywords: preference heterogeneity, expectation maximization (EM) algorithm, finite mixture model, GARP, revealed preferences, ambiguity, Ellsberg urn.
  • Risk Preferences Are Not Time Preferences: Balancing on a Budget Line: Comment, American Economic Review, 105(7), pp.2261-2271, 2015, with Helga Fehr-Duda.
  • Income Expectations, Limited Liquidity, and Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice.
    • working paper
    • Keywords: hyperbolic discounting, magnitude effect, sign effect, time inconsistency.
  • Probability and Risk: Foundations and Economic Implications of Probability-Dependent Risk Preferences, Annual Review of Economics, 4, pp.567-593, 2012, with Helga Fehr-Duda.
  • Viewing the Future through a Warped Lens: Why Uncertainty Generates Hyperbolic Discounting, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 43(3), pp.169-203, 2011, with Adrian Bruhin and Helga Fehr-Duda.
  • Risk and Rationality: The Effect of Mood and Decision Rules on Probability Weighting, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 78(1-2), pp.14-21, 2011, with Adrian Bruhin, Helga Fehr-Duda and Renate Schubert.
    • published version
    • Keywords: preference stability, risk preferences, mood, emotions.
  • Rationality on the Rise; Why Relative Risk Aversion Increases with Stake Size, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 40(2), pp.147-180, 2010, with Adrian Bruhin, Helga Fehr-Duda and Renate Schubert.
  • Risk and Rationality: Uncovering Heterogeneity in Probability Distortion, Econometrica, 78(4), pp.1375-1412, 2010, with Adrian Bruhin and Helga Fehr-Duda.

Other Scientific Output

  • Experimental Validation of Common Patience Survey Measures, Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality, Technical Report, 2019, with Ernst Fehr, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Søren Leth-Petersen and Gregers Nytoft Rasmussen.
  • Description of the Aarhus Survey, Aarhus University, Technical Report, 2018, with Alexander Koch and Julia Nafziger.
  • The Two Faces of Independence: Betweenness and Homotheticity, University of Zurich, Working Paper No. 179, 2014, with Daniel Burghart and Ernst Fehr.
  • Energy-Using Durables: The Role of Time Discounting in Investment Decisions, Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), Publication No. 290417, 2011, with Helga Fehr-Duda and Renate Schubert.
    • final report
    • Keywords: energy efficiency, time discounting, hazard rate, liquidity constraints.

Grants

  • CAPABLE, EU Horizon grant, Co-Investigator, 2023-2026.
  • Welcoming Talents, Métropole Européenne de Lille (MEL), Principal investigator, 2021-2024, EUR 150,000.
  • Chair of Excellence, Project: Identifying Behavioral Barriers to Tackling Climate Change, I-Site, 2021-2023, EUR 95,000, with Loïc Berger, Fabrice Le Lec, Uyanga Turmunkh and Vincent Théroude.
  • Risk, Betrayal, and Inequality: Decomposing the Trust Game, Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), 2020-2022, EUR 372,250, with Alexander Cappelen, Bertil Tungodden and Ferdinand Vieider.
  • The Role of the Intestinal Microbiome in Explaining Economic Preferences, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Spark grant, Principal investigator (joint with Christian Biener, University of St. Gallen), 2020-2021, CHF 98,300, with Andrew Macpherson (Inselspital Bern, project partner).
  • Identifying Risk and Ambiguity Preferences Free from Context, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Principal investigator (joint with Christian Biener, University of St. Gallen), 2019-2024, CHF 529,787.
  • Go For It While You Can, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Principal investigator, 2019-2023, CHF 710,129, with Ferdinand Vieider (Ghent, co-investigator) and Mohammed Abdellaoui (HEC Paris, project partner).
  • Contextuality in Choice, University of St. Gallen Basic Research Fund, Principal investigator, 2018-2019, CHF 33,903.
  • The Missing Toolbox for Designing Economic Experiments, Richard Büchner Foundation, Principal investigator (joint with Philipp Zahn, University of St. Gallen), 2017-2018, CHF 44,400.
  • various of other projects as a co-investigator or project partner

Honors and Awards

  • Ranked #1 in the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) Competitive Examinations (Section 37: Economics and Management) for Research Director positions, 2021.
  • Latsis prize of the University of St. Gallen for work on microeconomics, 2017.

Metrics

Refereeing

  • American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, Nature Communications, PNAS Nexus, AEJ:Micro, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of European Economic Association, Management Science, Journal of Public Economics, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, European Economic Review, Economic Journal, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organziation, The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Theory and Decision, Operations Research, and Economics Letters.
  • European Research Commission (ERC), Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

Education

  • University of Zurich, Ph.D. in Management and Economics, summa cum laude
  • ETH Zurich, Diploma of Advanced Studies in Applied Statistics

Footnotes:

1

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