Benjamin Enke

Bio

Curriculum Vitae

My research is in behavioral and experimental economics, including applications in cultural economics and political economy. Much of my current work focuses on cognitive information processing (e.g. complexity and cognitive uncertainty), as well as the political consequences and cultural origins of heterogeneity in moral values.

I received my Ph.D. in 2016 from the University of Bonn and subsequently joined Harvard’s Economics Department. At Harvard, I teach a Ph.D. course on Experimental Economics and an undergraduate class on Economics and Morality.

Reviews and Perspectives

Moral Boundaries

Annual Review of Economics , 2024, vol. 16 (1), pp. 133-157. [PDF]

'Morality and Political Economy' from the Vantage Point of Economics

PNAS Nexus , 2024, vol. 3 (10). [PDF]

Handbook of Culture and Economic Behavior

(Co-edited with Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn and Leonard Wantchekon)

To appear in Elsevier Handbooks in Economics . [Table of Contents]

Publications and Accepted Papers

Complexity and Time

(with Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea)

Forthcoming, Journal of the European Economic Association . [PDF]

Values as Luxury Goods and Political Behavior

(with Mattias Polborn and Alex Wu)

Forthcoming, Journal of the European Economic Association . [PDF]

Universalism and Political Representation: Evidence from the Field

(with Raymond Fisman, Luis Mota Freitas and Steven Sun)

Forthcoming, American Economic Review: Insights . [PDF]

Universalism: Global Evidence

(with Alexander Cappelen and Bertil Tungodden)

American Economic Review , 2025, vol. 115 (1), pp. 43-76. [PDF]

Associative Memory, Beliefs and Market Interactions

(with Frederik Schwerter and Florian Zimmermann)

Journal of Financial Economics , 2024, vol. (157), 103853. [PDF]

Cognitive Uncertainty

(with Thomas Graeber)

Quarterly Journal of Economics , 2023, vol. 138 (4), pp. 2021-2067 (Lead Article). [PDF] [VOX] [UNDP column]

Moral Universalism and the Structure of Ideology

(with Ricardo Rodriguez-Padilla and Florian Zimmermann)

Review of Economic Studies , 2023, vol. 90 (4), pp. 1934-1962. [PDF] [econimate video]

Cognitive Biases: Mistakes or Missing Stakes?

(with Uri Gneezy, Brian Hall, David Martin, Vadim Nelidov, Theo Offerman, and Jeroen van de Ven)

Review of Economics and Statistics , 2023, vol. 105 (4), pp. 818-832. [PDF]

Confidence, Self-Selection and Bias in the Aggregate

(with Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea)

American Economic Review , 2023, vol. 113 (7), pp. 1933-1966. [PDF]

Market Exposure and Human Morality

Nature Human Behaviour , 2023, vol. 7 (1), pp. 134-141. [PDF]

Patience and Comparative Development

(with Uwe Sunde, Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman, and Gerrit Meyerheim)

Review of Economic Studies , 2022, vol. 89(10), pp. 2806–2840. [PDF]

Moral Universalism: Measurement and Economic Relevance

(with Ricardo Rodriguez-Padilla and Florian Zimmermann)

Management Science , 2022, vol. 68(5), pp. 3590-3603. [PDF] [Qualtrics files]

Confidence and Central Tendency in Perceptual Judgment

(with Yang Xiang, Thomas Graeber, and Samuel Gershman)

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics , 2021, 83, pp. 3024-3034. [PDF]

Moral Values and Voting

Journal of Political Economy , 2020, vol. 128(10), pp. 3679-3729 (Lead Article). [PDF] [microeconomic insights]

What You See Is All There Is

Quarterly Journal of Economics , 2020, vol. 135(3), pp. 1363-1398. [PDF] [Version 09/2017]

Ancient Origins of the Global Variation in Economic Preferences

(with Anke Becker and Armin Falk)

AEA Papers & Proceedings , 2020, vol. 110, pp. 319-323. [PDF]

Kinship, Cooperation, and the Evolution of Moral Systems

Quarterly Journal of Economics , 2019, vol. 134(2), pp. 953-1019. [PDF] [VOX] [CESifo Award]

Correlation Neglect in Belief Formation

(with Florian Zimmermann)

Review of Economic Studies , 2019, vol. 86(1), pp. 313-332. [PDF]

Global Evidence on Economic Preferences

(with Armin Falk, Anke Becker, Thomas Dohmen, David Huffman, and Uwe Sunde)

Quarterly Journal of Economics , 2018, vol. 133(4), pp. 1645-1692 (Lead Article). [PDF] [GPS website]

The Precision of Subjective Data and the Explanatory Power of Economic Models

(with Tilman Drerup and Hans-Martin von Gaudecker)

Journal of Econometrics , 2017, vol. 200(2), pp. 378-389. [PDF]

Working Papers

Herding, Warfare and a Culture of Honor: Global Evidence

(with Yiming Cao, Armin Falk, Paola Giuliano and Nathan Nunn)

Revise and resubmit, American Economic Review . [PDF]

Quantifying Lottery Choice Complexity

(with Cassidy Shubatt)

Revise and resubmit, Econometrica . [PDF] [Code]

Behavioral Attenuation

(with Thomas Graeber, Ryan Oprea and Jeffrey Yang)

Working Paper . [PDF]

Capturing the Complexity of Human Strategic Decision-Making with Machine Learning

(with Jian-Qiao Zhu, Joshua Peterson and Thomas Griffiths)

Revise and resubmit, Nature Human Behaviour . [PDF]