Lecture Topics
A growing series of complimentary lectures across five topic areas
Behavioral Economics Verein offers a growing series of complimentary English-language lectures in Zurich. Topics can be adapted for public audiences, entrepreneurs, professionals, students, community groups, and institutions.
The lectures are practical, accessible, and designed for the general public. No prior knowledge of economics is required.
Everyday Decisions
Why Smart People Make Predictable Mistakes
A practical introduction to mental shortcuts, framing, loss aversion, anchoring, and overconfidence.
Why We Procrastinate
Present bias, self-control, habits, deadlines, and practical tools for action.
Why We Misunderstand Each Other
How assumptions, framing, ego, memory, and emotional bias affect conversations with friends, colleagues, partners, and family members.
The Hidden Psychology of Everyday Choices
Why we choose the familiar, avoid small risks, overthink simple decisions, and repeat patterns that do not serve us.
Money and Behavioral Finance
Money, Risk and the Irrational Investor
How fear, greed, overconfidence, herd behavior, and loss aversion influence financial decisions.
Educational only. This lecture does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Behavioral Finance for Everyday Life
How cognitive biases affect saving, spending, investing, debt, insurance, retirement decisions, and financial planning.
Educational only. This lecture does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Why Smart People Make Bad Financial Decisions
Why educated and successful people still overpay, chase returns, avoid necessary risks, or trust the wrong signals.
Educational only. This lecture does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Inflation, Interest Rates, and Human Behavior
How people react to inflation, uncertainty, higher interest rates, market volatility, and economic headlines.
Educational only. This lecture does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Educational only. This lecture does not provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Business, Marketing, and Digital Influence
Who Designed Your Choice?
How companies, banks, and websites use behavioral economics to make us click, buy, stay, and pay.
The Psychology of Pricing
Why the same price can feel cheap, expensive, fair, or suspicious depending on anchoring, framing, comparison, and perceived value.
Consumer Behavior and Marketing Psychology
How scarcity, defaults, social proof, loss aversion, product placement, and choice overload influence buying decisions.
Subscription Traps and Digital Friction
Why it is easy to subscribe and hard to cancel, and how companies use friction to keep customers paying.
Current Topics by Request
Current Financial Topics Through a Behavioral Lens
A flexible lecture format responding to current financial and economic topics suggested by participants.
Crypto, Bubbles, and Hype
Why hype cycles are psychologically powerful and why people often join trends too late.
How Banks Build or Lose Trust
Behavioral mechanisms behind trust, fear, reputation, and customer decision-making in financial institutions.
Ask the Audience: What Should We Discuss Next?
Future lectures may be built around questions proposed by participants.
Shape the Next Lecture
Do not see a topic that interests you? Suggest one — future lectures may be built around questions proposed by participants. Or invite us to present at your institution.
Relationships, Work, and Social Decisions
Fairness, Money, and Relationships
Why splitting bills, sharing costs, lending money, gifts, and financial expectations can create emotional tension.
Why Couples Argue About the Wrong Thing
How framing, memory bias, fairness, emotional accounting, and loss aversion create unnecessary conflict.
Decision Traps at Work
Why teams delay decisions, follow the loudest voice, ignore weak signals, or choose the safest option instead of the best one.
Hiring and Bias
How first impressions, similarity bias, confidence, and storytelling influence hiring decisions.