BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS: INTEGRATION AND SYNERGY OF ECONOMICS AND PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

The article analyzes the scientific merits of behavioral economics, as one of the most promising and dynamically developing trends in modern science that is of great interest to researchers. Particular attention in the article is paid to the analysis of the scientific conclusions of Nobel laureate R. Thaler who is considered to be the most authoritative scientist in the field of behavioral economics. Scientific integration with psychology has enriched the methodology of economic research with many new scientific approaches, including experiment, which until the beginning of the 21st century was generally considered almost unacceptable in economic practice due to the irreversibility and unpredictability of its consequences. However, the use of experiment to study the psychological characteristics of people's behavior helped to understand the logic of many economic processes better, making them more predictable and controllable. The article concludes that the scientific developments of representatives of behavioral economics are important both for economic theory and for economic practice. They are implemented in predicting the dynamics of various markets, in optimizing socio-economic decisions based on the policy of ‘libertarian paternalism’. With their help, the widely used hyperbolic discounting model was developed, and another new branch of economics emerged — behavioral finance.