Economics and Management

How do scientific breakthroughs efficiently reach the market? How do we allocate essential but limited resources so they provide the greatest benefit to humanity? Caltech aims to answer these ambitious questions by applying its distinctive approach to the study of finance—incorporating behavioral science, computer science, mathematics, and neuroscience. Your gift will support Caltech scholars who are deepening our understanding of how companies and people make financial decisions and how to design more successful financial institutions and markets.

To start a conversation about your potential gift, email give@caltech.edu or call (626) 395-4863.

The Decisions Detective

How can economists verify the accuracy of their elegant theories in a dynamic, irrational world? Grounded in mathematics and defined assumptions, economic theories can yield insights into human behavior. They can help decision-makers predict how everyday lives may be affected by their interventions, from tariffs, subsidies, and business incentives to voting rules, tax structures, and methods for allocating public assets.

Tags: Economics and Management

The Well-Connected Theorist

“In networks,” says economic theorist Teddy Mekonnen, “how you connect one person to another really matters.” When he came to Caltech as a Linde Postdoctoral Fellow, Mekonnen joined a network designed in a way he had never seen.

Tags: Postdoctoral Fellowships; CS+X; Economics and Management

Break Through on the Road Brings Campaign Impact to San Jose

Tags: Graduate Fellowships; Student Experience; Energy and the Environment; Economics and Management; Human Health; Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Neuroscience

Caltech graduate student in sustainability Hao Zhao

But Does It Hold Water?

The drought is over. Or at least that’s the word on the street in California after a rain-soaked winter that restored surface water and snowpack in 2017. The picture is far more complicated, though. Groundwater takes years to recover after a prolonged shortage. In the meantime, many parts of the state still lack cohesive plans to meet the needs of people and businesses while protecting water resources. That’s where Hao Zhao comes in.

Tags: Graduate Fellowships; Energy and the Environment; Economics and Management

Friend of Caltech Makes Landmark Gift to Build a Better World

“You ought to leave the world better than you found it,” engineer Allen Davis was known to say. And he did: Davis, who passed away at age 91 in 2015, left more than $60 million from his estate to Caltech.

Tags: Flexible Funding; Faculty Support; Economics and Management; Neuroscience; Next-Generation Astronomy; Planetary Science; The Quantum Future

The Caltech Effect: November 2017

In this issue of The Caltech Effect, we explore the notion of familial ties across many dimensions—generations, labs, even the Milky Way.

Tags: Flexible Funding; Student Experience; Economics and Management; Instrumentation; Next-Generation Astronomy; Planetary Science; Comparative Planetary Evolution

The Caltech Effect: March 2017

Welcome to the second edition of The Caltech Effect. Explore the unique relationships that inspire Caltech people to achieve the extraordinary. An adviser models unorthodox research. Undergrads evolve from solo stars into team leaders. Postdocs help others at a time when personal achievement is paramount. A junior is encouraged to launch a hedge fund from his dorm room. Real users and industry experts help students invent wheelchair technologies. Astronomers pass the torch of discovery from one generation to the next.

Tags: Graduate Fellowships; Postdoctoral Fellowships; Faculty Support; Student Experience; CS+X; Energy and the Environment; Economics and Management; Human Health; Next-Generation Astronomy