Background and objectives

Since Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, behavioral economics and behavioral finance has been drawing attention in Japan.

This growing interest is not temporary in nature. The significance of behavioral economics has become evident as a natural development in the history of economics. In the 1980s, with the concept of maximization of utility by the representative agent, a microeconomic dimension was added to macroeconomics. As a result, economists began to focus their attention on human behavior. This focal shift itself was a major step forward in the scholarship.

However, the description claiming that rational individual choices directly influence macroeconomic variables has made it even more difficult to accurately describe the pathologies of modern economic society. It has become essential to further develop behavioral economics and behavioral finance so as to break through the limitations that economics faces today. Despite the above awareness, the Japanese economics community has been rather slow to act. For example, at the moment, there is almost no Japanese university that teaches behavioral economics and behavioral finance. Academia has not responded much to the interest in behavioral economics that is rapidly growing in the business community and among students. In view of this situation, during the last three years we have organized six Behavioral Economics Workshops in Tokyo and Osaka, to encourage research in this field. The results of these Workshops have convinced us that now is the time to establish an academic organization as a key forum of exchange for researchers, so as to actively encourage behavioral economics and behavioral finance research in Japan.

We invite researchers, businesspersons and students interested in economics, finance, accounting, business administration, marketing, psychology, politics etc. to join the Association of Behavioral Economics and Finance, for stimulating and rewarding interaction among the members. The Association envisages organizing an annual conference and publishing a journal to realize exchange among the members.