Call for Papers
Special Issue of the Journal of Economic Methodology

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS AT 50:
TAKING STOCK AND LOOKING AHEAD

Guest Editors

• Malte Dold (Pomona College, USA)
• Shaun Hargreaves Heap (King’s College London, UK)
• Alexey Upravitelev (University of Trento, Italy)

Rationale and Scope

Many regard Kahneman and Tversky’s 1974 article, “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” as the starting point of modern behavioral economics. Fifty years later, the field has reshaped economic theory and methodology, been absorbed into the mainstream, and institutionalized across business, finance, and public policy.

This success invites reflection. Methodologically, behavioral economics has been challenged by replication failures, questions of external validity, and the difficulty of moving beyond lab experiments. Experiments often rely on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples, raising doubts about cross-cultural generalizability.

Theoretically, it often relies on a “list of biases” that risks being ad hoc and disconnected. It frequently considers neoclassical models as the benchmark and defines “biases” relative to the rational actor model, while underplaying processes of learning, adaptation, and preference formation. Critics also argue that the field sometimes overemphasizes individual cognition at the expense of cultural and institutional factors.

Normatively, behavioral interventions raise issues about welfare measurement, autonomy, and democratic legitimacy. Policy applications confront questions of calibration, scalability, and the political economy constraints of the “choice architect.” Furthermore, the digital transformation (including algorithmic, personalized, and dynamic interfaces) enables new forms of targeting that raise urgent concerns about consumer sovereignty and manipulation.

Topics of Interest

This special issue invites contributions that reflect upon the state of behavioral economics and explore promising directions for future research. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Methodological and theoretical foundations of behavioral economics
• History and intellectual development of the field
• The "Replication Crisis" and the future of experimental methodology
• Behavioral Economics in the age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data
• Cross-cultural behavioral economics and the limits of WEIRD samples
• Evolutionary and neuroeconomic perspectives on preference formation
• The role of institutions and social norms in behavioral modeling
• Ethics and democratic legitimacy of behavioral public policy

Submission Guidelines & Process

• All submissions will undergo a standard double-blind peer-review process organized by the guest editors.
• Manuscripts should not exceed 8,000 words.
• When submitting via the Journal’s online portal, please select the special issue title “Behavioral Economics at 50” from the dropdown menu.
• Please carefully follow the Journal’s guidelines: Taylor & Francis Instructions for Authors.

Important Dates

• Submissions open: February 20, 2026
• Submission deadline: October 20, 2026
• Target publication: Fall 2027

For inquiries regarding the suitability of a topic or the submission process, please contact the guest editors at alexey.upravitelev@unitn.it.