The mission of the Richard H. Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance is to provide advanced education, outreach and research for the benefit of the center’s various stakeholders. Areas of focus include education and outreach; research on issues related to behavioral science aspects of financial decision-making, behavioral economics, and behavioral finance; facilitating collaboration among agencies/stakeholders; and leadership and engagement by and between DePaul University and other academic institutions.
Behavioral decision-making studies the basic psychology of decision-making, while behavioral economics and behavioral finance study the role of irrational thinking in economic and financial decision-making, respectively. Top-notch research is always the foundation for a research center to generate reputation and have influence on academia, industry, as well as the regulatory community. A center’s contribution to teaching is also of paramount importance.
The center will offer advanced courses in behavioral science (in collaboration with other departments) at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. As a collaborative partner across DePaul’s various departments, the center will provide the broadest dissemination of its efforts and activities and allow for the greatest inter-departmental engagement. The center also will maintain and coordinate mutually beneficial relationships with industry partners that allow students to apply skills learned in the classroom to real world problems while earning academic credit and giving companies and agencies talented resources to deal with the behavioral aspect of decision-making.
The center will play a pivotal role in bridging academia and practice by conducting workshops on current topics and offering training programs for the benefit of the business community. Through its internship and cooperative programs, the center will also meet the needs of the industry and enhance the educational experience of the student body and its industry partners.
The vision for the next five to 10 years is to put the center on the list of elite institutions for behavioral science, an active subfield in financial economics.