Personal Statement · claude-sonnet-5-5

I've been intrigued by the disparity of action vs. word throughout my life. Most bluntly, I’ve seen it with money. My dad would vow to start putting money away each month and then, of course, there were sales. Other members of my family had similar relationships with their words and actions, especially with regards to their health and wealth. A fascination with behavioral economics is partly born from the fact that I’ve been able to spot these obvious logical flaws in people’s behavior my entire life. The classic textbook example is The Marshmallow Test. There are so many lessons from behavioral economics that explain why we make suboptimal financial decisions. I think people have a natural inclination to reflect on the reasoning for their actions, and behavioral economics provides beautiful frameworks for these musings. Taking a right or a left, and small variances in environment and circumstances have drastic effects on outcomes. The nuances of people’s lives can be modeled and illustrated through behavioral economics. It’s elegant, it’s neuroscientific and psychologically rational. I’ve become interested in behavioral economics and the ways in which experimental design can affect economic decision-making as a result of coursework. In my statistics course, I conducted a survey to assess what framing effect, if any, existed in regard to students’ decisions to enroll in a campus savings program. Emails describing the savings program to participants by the researcher as a way to not lose future monetary opportunities of the program framing were significantly more effective in increasing program enrollment than emails describing the savings program to participants by the researcher as a way to gain monetary rewards of the program. The study demonstrated a powerful means of evaluating psychological decision making. However, the humility and open-mindedness of participants to the research process is critical to achieve positive research outcomes. Behavioral economics is of interest to me because I believe that the integration of the principles of behavioral economics to other disciplines such as public policy and product development will aid in positive social change. For instance, in a positive manner, behavioral economics principles can be used to design and implement economic policy and health and wealth related programs and products to positively transform individuals’ quality of life. My aspiration is to improve people’s lives in an empowering way via the application of behavioral economics, and create opportunities for others to improve and enrich their lives in similar ways.

Ever since I was young I have been intrigued by why people do not follow through with what they say they will do. Growing up I saw my parents struggle with finances. My dad would say he was going to save money each month. However every time something came up whether it be a sale or he had a stressful week he never followed through. I didnt know the term at the time but I knew that my dad was exhibiting present bias. Once I learned about behavioral economics I felt as if I found answers to many questions that have been lingering in my mind since I was young. Many models created in the world of economics believe that humans are logical and will make decisions that will benefit them in the future. These are great models to create but when looking at most humans I do not believe these assumptions will apply to them. Behavioral economics helps explain why we dont save money for retirement. Why we stick with defaults. Loss aversion and how small changes can influence peoples decisions on big decisions. I enjoy learning about something that is mathematical and uses human psychology to answer questions. Courses that I have taken in school have only further helped me understand why I enjoy behavioral economics. During one of my statistics classes I was able to create a small survey that asked students if they would sign up for a savings account on campus. When presented with the information that if they did not sign up they were missing out on an opportunity. More students answered yes to signing up than when we told them that they could gain more money. Although my results were small and not statistically significant I enjoyed learning how in depth a study can go and that there are factors that you can control to change human behavior. Learning from my results that sometimes we are wrong. I would like to learn about behavioral economics so that I can help create policies and products that benefit those around us. Whether it be retirement accounts or other ways that can allow humans to have healthier lifestyles. There are many programs and ways to learn that will help better people lives that we are not utilizing. I believe that if we can figure out how humans act we can better better humans lives. This is what I would like to do by studying in this field.

Growing up, I witnessed how present bias affected the people around me. As a teenager, I watched my father try (and repeatedly fail) to stick to a monthly savings schedule, with each setback attributed to some stressful week or unplanned sale. Behavioral economics provides the language I lacked to make sense of these observations. I want to pursue graduate studies to learn more about this and other seemingly irrational behaviors. Traditional economics models consumer behavior as the product of informed and rational decision-making. In contrast, behavioral economics investigates why people procrastinate, conform to default options, weigh losses more heavily than equivalent gains, and make consequential decisions in response to seemingly trivial contextual differences. I find behavioral economics to be a compelling field of study because it does not ignore or excuse these deviations from rationality; instead, it attempts to explain them using a combination of mathematical analysis and psychological insight. My enthusiasm for behavioral economics deepened in a statistics course, when I conducted a survey experiment on loss aversion and savings behavior. I found that my peers were more likely to report that they would participate in a hypothetical savings program when the benefits were framed in terms of foregone opportunities, rather than monetary gains. Though the effect was modest and my sample size was small, this project gave me my first taste of experimental design and quantitative analysis in behavioral economics. It also provided me with an important lesson in humility: I walked into this project with strong preconceptions about the results I would find. I am excited to continue learning in an intellectually stimulating graduate program, where I can collaborate with like-minded peers and learn from leading researchers. Ultimately, I hope to use this research to inform the design of financial products, health interventions, retirement policies, and other tools intended to improve welfare, which are programs all too often predicated on an unrealistic notion of rationality. By conducting and analyzing rigorous experiments and real-world data, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of decision-making and to use this understanding to create policies and products that promote well-being while preserving individual autonomy.

Since I was a teenager, I’ve had a passion to know how people make decisions. I spent much of my youth studying, observing, and interacting with various people. Growing up, my family had some money problems. We had to sell our house to be able to cover our bills and get food on the table. I later learned that much of our problems were caused by poor planning, low impulse control, and an extreme lack of self-control and diligence with regard to investing. Years later, I would discover behavioral economics. Standard economic models assume that we human beings are rational—calculated decision-makers—in economic interactions. It is a powerful, simple, mathematically consistent, and productive assumption. Behavioral economics begins by rejecting that assumption. It argues instead that individual psychological processes are a critical missing factor when trying to understand and predict economic phenomena. It asks why we succumb to instant gratification, why our purchases are affected by loss aversion, and why we care about the circumstances of our neighbors. I am drawn to this approach because it tries to measure, organize, and understand human irrationality. By learning to think like an economist, students learn to distill situations to their essence, removing judgment from descriptions and recognizing that incentives explain a great deal of behavior. While the field of economics is broad and diverse, my interests lie specifically in the relatively young branch of behavioral economics, an interdisciplinary field which explores the bounds of “rational economic man.” By emphasizing the central importance of psychological, social, emotional, and cognitive factors—typically outside the consideration of standard economic analysis—I believe behavioral economics has the potential to make robust and generalizable contributions to a wide array of fields. I want to study graduate economics because I would like to develop skills to design policy through rigorous field and lab-based experimentation in order to affect societal change. Retirement plans often make assumptions about saving goals, basing them on an optimal model. Instead, I hope to propose better retirement plans by addressing the poor decisions humans make due to limitations in our information processing, mental computing, and ability to adhere to our long-term goals. Ultimately, I am motivated by the desire to have a positive impact on the world. Through my work, I want to help others make better decisions that lead to happier, healthier, and more prosperous lives. I will also pursue this goal by engaging with scholars and practitioners who share similar values and interests.

Ever since I was young, I have found it fascinating to see how people act differently in practice to how they plan to act. Growing up as a teen I watched my parents struggle with money. My Dad always said he would start saving every month but inevitably something would happen (e.g. a surprise sale or a busy week) and he wouldn’t. I wasn’t aware of the term at the time but I was witnessing the present bias. As I got older, I discovered behavioural economics which gave me the tools to answer questions I have had since I was young. Economic models rely on people acting rationally, consistently and having complete information. whilst these can create beautiful theories they often don’t reflect the people I know. behavioural economics is a much more truthful approach. It allows you to ask why do we put off doing things? Why do we go with the default option? Why does losing something hurt us more than gaining the same amount makes us happy? And how can slight changes in our surroundings affect large decisions we make in life? I love how behavioural economics uses maths and psychology to understand the flaws within humans. During my studies I have become even more interested. During my statistics class I created a mini experiment looking at how framing affects peoples willingness to sign up to a savings scheme on campus. We saw that people were much more likely to sign up when we framed it as avoiding missing out on future opportunities rather than gaining money. Whilst the difference wasn’t huge and our sample size was small it was a great experience. I learnt how important it is to create a well thought out study and how exciting it is to see how people behave. I also learnt how important it is to be humble as rarely do we get the results we initially expect. I want to study behavioural economics to help create better policies and products. Often retirement schemes, health schemes and financial schemes don’t work as they are designed for perfect decision makers. I hope to learn how to create proper experiments, analyse real data and create solutions to improve people’s lives. Ultimately I want to create systems that help people thrive by understanding how people really make decisions. I am very keen to further my knowledge and work alongside researchers.

Throughout my life, I have been curious about discrepancies between plans and actions people make. From early years, I observed how members of my family were struggling to cope with expenses: while my father was claiming that he intended to start saving on a regular basis, his unexpected purchases or tough week used to undermine his intentions. I could not formulate my doubts at those times; now I know that I noticed my family's examples of present bias. Discovering behavioral economics many years later, I felt like I discovered a language that can describe my questions about human nature and decision-making process formed in my youth. According to traditional economics approaches, people are considered rational and well-informed. Such assumptions allow formulating beautiful theories and models but often fail when referring to actual people's behaviors. Behavioral economics approach is much closer to real life because it allows posing the questions which are relevant to the reality. Why do we tend to procrastinate? How do we choose following defaults? Why do losses bother us much more than gains? What are the reasons of our sensitivity to the framing effects? The classes I take develop my interests in this subject area. During one course on statistics, I conducted a very simple survey experiment, where I tried to figure out how different framing influenced students' decisions of signing up for savings program on campus. When the program was described in terms of avoiding lost opportunities, people were more likely to agree than when its benefits were defined in monetary terms. While results of this mini-experiment may seem small, I learned the basics of designing a decent study and saw the potential of using behavioral economics. Behavioral economics helps me understanding better why people do things the way they do it. With my academic background and knowledge, I would like to use them to develop policies and services that would benefit people more. Many retirement, health-related programs, financial tools often fail because they are based on wrong assumptions about perfect humans. I am eager to study behavioral economics in order to conduct experiments, collect data from real life and apply findings in practice.

I have always been slightly frustrated by the discrepancy between what people intend to do and what they actually do. Growing up as a teenager, I was constantly frustrated by my family’s financial struggles. My dad had always intended to save money every month but always seemed to fail for reasons ranging from sales to not having time. Years later, when I stumbled upon the subject of behavioral economics, I finally had words for my teenage frustrations with my dad. Traditional economic models of human behavior are based on the assumption that people are rational, consistent and even fully informed when making choices. In many situations these models describe human behavior very well, but in many other situations they fail completely to describe the behavior of real individuals. Behavioral economics is a way of understanding human behavior which acknowledges human imperfection and attempts to understand in more detail why people behave in particular ways. A key aim of the subject is to combine mathematical rigor with insights from psychology into human behavior. In my statistics class, we did a small survey experiment where we tested how different frames of a savings program for campus would get more students to sign up. We found that framing the savings program as a way to avoid losing opportunities in the future rather than as a way to gain money worked better. Although the effect was small and the sample size was small, it was really cool to see how people make decisions and how a study can be designed to test these. It also showed me that one has to be humble when doing a study because the results will often not be what one expected and therefore even counterintuitive. My intention is to utilize the knowledge that I gain from behavioral economics in the design and improvement of policies, programs, as well as products in the financial and health arenas. They are all frequently sub-optimal because they are based on the too-often-idealized decision maker. I hope to use experiments, real-world data analysis, and apply my insights to improve choice without unduly restricting it. Ultimately, my interest in behavioral economics stems from my hope that by understanding how individuals truly make decisions from data, we can develop programs and policies to aid individuals in attempting to reach their full potential while preserving their freedoms.

From early on, I was intrigued by the discrepancy between people's stated intentions to act and their actions. When I was in my teens, I watched my family struggle financially: my dad promised to save money every single month; however, every time there was a sale or he had a particularly stressful week, he would be derailed. At that point in my life, I didn't have the words to describe what I was seeing; however, what I was seeing was "present bias." Present bias refers to a person's preference to receive immediate gratification versus waiting for something better down the road. It wasn't until several years later when I discovered Behavioral Economics that I realized I finally had a way to ask some of those questions that had been bouncing around in my head for as long as I could remember. Traditional economics models of behavior make several key assumptions about people; that they will be rational, consistent, and that they will have complete information. These assumptions can lead to beautiful theories of behavior, but I find that many times those same theories cannot accurately represent the people in my world. Behavioral economics is much less restrictive than traditional economics. Instead of assuming people are perfect decision makers, it looks at why we delay things (procrastination), why we tend to go along with the "default" option (default), why losing something hurts us more than receiving an equal amount of benefit from gaining it, and how seemingly small changes in our environment can have a large impact on major decisions in our lives. I find myself attracted to a field of study which uses both mathematics and psychology to help us understand human imperfections instead of ignoring them. My interest in behavioral economics has grown with my coursework. For example, during a statistics class, I developed an experimental survey to test whether framing would affect whether students joined a campus savings program. I found that students were more likely to join if I described the program as a way to "avoid losing" something down the line (e.g., losing out on opportunities), rather than as a way to "gain" something. Although the effect size was relatively small and my sample size was limited, the process provided me with a better understanding of what goes into designing a good study and how exciting it is to find that humans react to changes in the environment in ways we can measure. Additionally, this experience taught me about humility because what you think will happen doesn't always happen. I'm interested in studying behavioral economics to assist with developing more effective policy and product designs. Many retirement plans, health programs, and other financial tools have failed due to their design for "ideal" decision makers. Through this program, I would like to gain experience conducting rigorous experimental research, analyzing real-world data, and translating the results of my studies into practical applications that will enhance individuals' lives while continuing to allow them the freedom to make choices. As I wrap up this letter, I would like to share one final thought about why I want to attend grad school. My primary motivation is that I believe when we know what really drives people's decision-making process, then we will be able to design systems to help people thrive. I plan to continue working toward this goal through higher education, working with other scientists, and using research-based methods to inform my work.

I have always found it intriguing how far off from doing something someone says they are going to do, is. When I was growing up, I watched my family struggle financially: My Dad promised himself every month that he would save some of his money; however, there were many times when he couldn't because of either a sudden sale or an especially stressful week. Although I didn't know what present bias meant at that time, I was witnessing it firsthand as well. Present bias refers to people's preference for receiving immediate gratification rather than waiting until the future for larger rewards. It wasn't until several years later when I discovered behavioral economics that I was able to find a way to express all of the questions about this subject that had plagued me since childhood. Traditional economics assumes people have rational behavior, make consistent choices, and are fully informed about all options. Although these assumptions allow for the development of elegant theories, they frequently do not represent people I've met. Behavioral economics, on the other hand, is much more realistic. This field examines why we put off things until later (procrastinate), why we select default choices, why we feel worse when we lose something than we do when we gain the same amount, and how minor variations in circumstances can influence significant life-altering decisions. I am attracted to a field that integrates both the quantitative analysis of mathematics with the understanding of psychology, and views human limitations as areas of study rather than obstacles to be ignored. My coursework has increased my interest. During my statistics course, I created a short survey experiment that examined how framing influenced whether or not students would participate in a savings program on campus. Students were significantly more likely to participate when the program was described as a means to prevent losing future opportunities than when it was described as a means to earn additional money. While the effect was modest, and the sample size was relatively small, the experience demonstrated to me the necessity of designing studies with great care, as well as the thrill of observing human behaviors change based upon experimental manipulation. Additionally, the experience helped me understand the need for humility; most studies do not support initial hypotheses. I want to take a course on Behavioral Economics so that I can create better policies and products. Too often, Retirement plans, Health plans and Financial Plans fail as they are developed based upon the assumption that the consumer makes logical decisions. My goal is to learn how to conduct experimental studies, analyze real-world data, and convert results into usable solutions that will benefit people's lives while maintaining their freedom of choice. I believe ultimately in a simple concept: if we know what influences the way people decide, we will be able to develop systems that allow them to thrive. I want to continue to explore this idea through my graduate studies, collaborating with other researchers, and using an evidence-based approach to research.

As a child, I noticed the difference in what my dad said he wanted to do vs. what he actually ended up doing when it came to managing money. He always promised he would put money away every single month. However, there were many times (such as when there were sales going on at the store) where his desire for short-term gratification took precedence over long-term goals. I did not have the language for it back then, but I now recognize my dad was experiencing the effects of "present bias" -- which is the tendency for humans to choose the short-term reward over the long-term reward. When I discovered behavioral economics, it was similar to learning a new language for many of the questions I had asked myself since childhood. Traditional economic models generally rely upon three key assumptions about how people behave economically: 1) they act rationally; 2) they are consistently acting based on their preferences and needs; and 3) they are completely aware of all possible outcomes of a decision. These assumptions create beautiful theoretical frameworks, however these do not accurately reflect the people I have known throughout my lifetime. Behavioral economics challenges those traditional notions. Behavioral economics seeks answers to such questions as: why do we delay making important decisions? Why do we conform to default options? How much does the perceived loss affect us compared to the gain we perceive from the same option? What types of subtle changes in context can significantly alter how individuals make large-scale decisions? A primary reason I find behavioral economics attractive is that it combines strong mathematical rigor with a deep understanding of psychology and views human fallibility as something worthy of investigation versus simply ignoring. My coursework in both introductory and intermediate econometrics has further reinforced my interest in behavioral economics. For example, while taking my introductory course in statistics, I conducted a small survey experiment to test whether the manner in which a college savings plan was framed would influence a student's likelihood to participate in the savings plan. Framing the savings plan as a means of avoiding potential future lost opportunities was more influential than framing the savings plan as a means of gaining money. While the impact was marginal and my sample size was limited, the process provided me valuable insight regarding how important study design is and how rewarding it is to observe human behavior responding in quantifiable manners. Additionally, it demonstrated to me the significance of being humble as research results typically vary from one's initial intuitive expectations. The motivation behind studying behavioral economics is to assist in developing improved policies and product designs. Many retirement plans, health programs and other financial tools continue to underperform due to the fact they are developed for idealized decision makers. Ultimately, I aspire to develop skills necessary to conduct valid studies, collect and analyze data from various sources, and translate my research into actionable strategies to positively affect individual lives without restricting their capacity for personal choice. In essence, I believe that if we comprehend how individuals ultimately make decisions, we may create systems that allow them to thrive. I am excited about pursuing that objective through graduate education, collaborative relationships with researchers, and an ongoing commitment to using evidence-based approaches.

I've never been able to stop gnawing at the disconnect between what people say they are going to do and what they do. I saw my family struggle with financial ideas and decisions as a teenager: I remember my father saying that he was going to start saving every month, but something always seemed to come up and stop him—some sale, some stressful week. I'm not sure if I had the words for it then, but present bias – the tendency to prefer immediate over future gains – was happening. Years later, when I found behavioral economics, it seemed like an Esperanto for my childhood questions. Traditional economics is based upon rational, consistent and well-informed people. Those assumptions lead to neat theories, and they don't always capture the persons I know. Behavioral economics has a more honest approach. Why do we find it easier to do things later, not do things at all, face pain more than pleasure from equivalent gains, and how much do seemingly inconsequential changes in context matter when making important choices that can affect our lives? What attracts me to this field is one that has a mathematical precision and an understanding of the psychological elements in human mistakes, and a discipline that doesn't ignore or pretend about human flaws. The interest has been reinforced by my coursework. I created a little survey experiment to learn more about the effect of framing on a students' attitudes toward signing a campus savings plan in my statistics class. It gave a better impression to state that this program was a way to not "lose out" on opportunities down the road than to state that it was a way to also acquire money. Its impact was limited and my sample was small, but it was an interesting experience to learn how precise such a study is to be and how fun it is to watch the measurable action of humans. It also helped me realize the importance of being humble, as the outcomes are often not what one initially thinks. I would like to learn about behavioural economics so that I can be able to design better policies and products. Retirement plans, health programs, and financial tools are often unsuccessful because they rely on 'ideal' decision makers. I'm interested in figuring out how to conduct experiments and how to perform them rigorously, how to treat real-world data, and how to be able to convert all that to real solutions that will make people's lives better without limiting their choices. Next up, I have a really simple idea. When you know how people really make decisions, you can create systems that support their growth. Through higher education and advanced research, working with other investigators and dedicated efforts towards evidence-based practices, I am excited to pursue that dream.

I have always been interested in the gulf between what people say they will and what they actually will. When I was a teenager, I witnessed my family struggle with money: my father would vow to set aside some cash each month, but some sale or stressful week would derail him. Although I did not have the words for this yet, it was present bias I was observing the tendency to prefer present reward over future benefit. After making a discovery as an adult of behavioural economics, it felt like discovering a language for questions I’ve had since childhood. Traditional economic models assume peoples taste and the goal of individuals is to gain maximum profit. The theories are nice, but not the ones that describe most of the people I know. It takes a more honest tack than. It asks us why we procrastinate, why we follow defaults, why losses hurt more than equivalent gains please us, and why small changes in context can lead to major life decisions. I am appealed to the discipline which is mathematical in nature and psychological, which does not ignore human fallibility but seeks to learn from it. My course work has strengthened this interest. In my statistics class, I designed a small survey experiment that tested how framing affected the willingness of students to join the campus savings program. Persuasion was more effective when the program was portrayed as a tool for avoiding future losses than when it was described as an opportunity to gain more money. I learned that studies must be designed carefully and that it is exciting to see somewhat how human behavior is measurably affected. My sample was small, but the effect was measurably modest. It likewise taught me about humility because results seldom match our first intuitions. Doing behavioral economics will help you design better policies and products that achieve desired outcomes. Retirement plans, health programmes, and financial tools too often fail because they are designed and engineered for straw man decision makers. I aim to be able to conduct detailed experimentation and analyze real-world data to effectively translate the findings into usable solutions that help improve people’s lives without compromising choice. In essence, I believe that understanding how people really make decisions will enable us to construct systems that give people a chance to flourish. I look forward to achieving that goal through study, engagement with researchers and evidence-based work.

I have a long history of being curious about what people say they will do versus what they actually do. Growing up, I witnessed my family tussle with money as my father swore he would save each month, but a sale or stressful week always got in the way. I did not have the words for it yet, but I saw present bias at work, the tendency to prefer immediate rewards. Many years later when I discovered behavioral economics, it felt as if I had found a language to give expression to questions I had been asking since childhood. People are assumed to be rational, consistent and fully informed. Theories drawn from these assumptions are elegant, but they do a poor job of describing my people. Behavioral economics adopts a more truthful approach. It raises the questions of why we procrastinate, why we default to what others choose for us, why losses hurt more than equivalent gains please, and how small changes in context can exert a mighty influence on our life choices. I’m attracted to a field that connects interpersonal processes with mathematical logic, which considers human imperfections as something to understand rather than something to escape. This interest has increased through study. For my statistics class, I devised a mini survey experiment exploring how framing affected students’ expressed willingness to enroll in a campus saving program. The strategy of presenting the program as keeping you from losing out on future options works better than marketing it as making you money. Although my sample was small and the effect not that dramatic, nevertheless, this experience taught me how delicately a study must be designed and how interesting it is to see human behaviour respond in measurable ways. It also demonstrated humility’s importance, as reality results are seldom the same as our first impressions. My aim while studying behavioural economics is to help design potential policies and products. Designed for imaginary decision makers, retirement plans, health programs, and financial outfits often don’t work as hoped. I would like to learn how to conduct robust experiments, mining real-world data and extrapolating conclusions into solutions that would improve lives without impairing people’s freedom of choice. I’m driven by the rather straightforward premise that if we can understand how people actually decide things, we can construct systems that help them thrive. My enthusiasm for reaching that objective through further study, collaboration with researchers, and evidence-driven work.

The dissonance between intentions and actions has long fascinated me. When I was younger, I observed family struggles with budgeting: my father would plan each month to start saving, only to let the goal slip through his fingers after a spur-of-the-moment purchase or particularly grueling week. At the time I didn't know the terminology, but in retrospect, I was observing "present bias"-our natural preference to value current rewards more than the benefits of saving for the future. Learning about behavioral economics later on, I felt I had finally acquired the vocabulary to articulate the questions that had occupied me during my adolescence. Standard economic theories model agents who are rational, persistent, and entirely informed. Those frameworks allow for mathematically precise and theoretically beautiful models, but they frequently fail to represent the humans I know. I find the behavioral approach to be more genuine, addressing why people postpone tasks, why defaults are so powerful, why we feel loss more severely than equivalent gain, and why simple context manipulation can significantly affect choices. I value that the field integrates quantitative rigor with the nuance of human psychology, rather than simply brushing human fallibility aside. My academic interests developed as I participated in a miniature experiment I conducted in a stats class; I measured framing effects in terms of student propensity to sign up for an university savings incentive. I found that messaging focusing on the avoidance of future "missed out" gains proved more compelling than messaging emphasizing the accumulation of money. The sample was limited and effect was small, yet it underscored to me the challenge of designing clean, experimental environments and the pleasure of quantifying, and perhaps better understanding, people's responses to our efforts. It also helped cultivate my humility, realizing results seldom track with our initial hunches. I want to do research within this field to better influence the way we think about the formation of policy and creation of product, which often fall short by the assumption of a "perfect" user. I am looking forward to gaining better facility with experimental design, econometric analysis, and, ideally, the application of academic findings toward better products that preserve user sovereignty whilst assisting people's lives. Finally, I am committed because of a fundamental thesis that has followed me since childhood; if we look at our own foibles and build our worlds acknowledging how we actually make choices, rather than how we wish we would, we may have the potential to build better outcomes for everyone.

I have always been intrigued by the difference between what people say they will do and what they actually do. When I was a teenager I saw my family struggle with money—my father repeatedly promised that he would begin saving each month, but whenever there was an unexpected sale or a particularly stressful week he always managed to put it off. At that time I didn't have the right words to describe it, but I was noticing something known as present bias, which is the tendency to prefer immediate rewards to future benefits. It wasn't until many years later that I came across behavioural economics and it was then that I realised I had been asking myself these questions since I was a child. Standard economic models suppose that people are rational, consistent, and fully informed. Although these assumptions lead to neat theoretical frameworks, they usually do not reflect the kind of people I know. Behavioral economics adopts a more truthful standpoint by investigating why we put off things, why we go with defaults, why losses affect us more than equivalent gains do, and how minor changes in the situation can influence big life decisions. I am attracted to a field that brings together mathematical rigor and psychological understanding and one that regards human fallibility as something to be understood rather than disregarded. This interest of mine has been developed through my coursework. In my statistics class I carried out a small survey experiment to find out how framing influenced students' willingness to take part in a campus savings scheme. It proved to be more persuasive to describe the scheme as a means of avoiding the loss of future opportunities than to present it as a way of earning money. Although the effect was small and my sample size was small, the experience taught me how carefully a study has to be designed and how exciting it finds it when human behaviour responds in measurable ways. It also made it clear to me how important humility is, since the results rarely conform to our initial intuitions. I would like to study behavioural economics in order that I might be able to help in the design of better policies and products. Retirement schemes, health initiatives, and financial tools frequently fail since they are based on the idea of ideal decision-makers. I intend to learn how to carry out rigorous experiments, analyse real-world data, and convert the results into practical solutions which enhance people's lives without restricting their freedom of choice. What ultimately drives me is the idea that, since we understand how people actually make decisions, we will be able to create systems which help them thrive. I want to work towards this aim by carrying out advanced study, collaborating with researchers, and sticking to evidence-driven work.

I have always been intrigued by the discrepancy between the promises people make and their actual behavior. As a teenager, I observed my family struggle with money. My father always promised to save more every month, but before he could start, some great sale or some crisis would pop up and disrupt his plans. I had not yet learned that it was called temporal discounting, which is the focus on immediate gratification at the expense of the future. Normal economics assumes people are rational, consistent, and knowledgeable. While these assumptions might create some nice clean theories, the truth is that in real life they fall flat. Behavioral Economics is much more realistic. It seeks to uncover the reasons behind procrastination, following defaults, loss aversion, and the effects of context on our decision-making. I like a field that is a mix of mathematics and psychological insight and sees imperfection as something to analyze instead of ignore. My classes reinforced this interest. For my statistics class project, I conducted a small survey experiment. I discovered that framing a program as one that prevents the loss of opportunities is much more effective than framing it as one that leads to money-making. While my findings were marginal and based on a small sample size, it did allow me to recognize the importance of designing a study accurately and the thrill of seeing behavioral changes in practice. It also taught me humility, since the results rarely match our original beliefs. My desire to study behavioral economics stems from the need to design better policies and products. Retirement plans, health programs, and financial products are frequently designed for the ideal human being. I am interested in learning how to conduct research, glean real world knowledge, and apply findings to create better lives for people, while still leaving room for decision-making. Ultimately, I believe that if we know how people actually make decisions we will be able to provide systems that set people up for success. I want to pursue this goal through further education, working with researchers, and making evidence-based decisions.