Rate My Professor Roland Benabou

Bénabou's research spans macroeconomic and microeconomic topics, including inflation and imperfect competition, speculation in financial markets, inequality and growth, social mobility, the political economy of redistribution, education, social interactions, the socioeconomic structure of cities, and behavioral economics—focusing on extrinsic incentives versus intrinsic motivation, prosocial behavior, and motivated beliefs such as overconfidence, wishful thinking, identity, groupthink, ideology, and religion. Prominent publications include "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior" (American Economic Review, 2006, with Jean Tirole), "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2002, with Jean Tirole), "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2006, with Jean Tirole), "Identity, Morals and Taboos: Beliefs as Assets" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2011, with Jean Tirole), "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract" (American Economic Review, 2000), and "Forbidden Fruits: The Political Economy of Science, Religion, and Growth" (Review of Economic Studies, 2022, with Davide Ticchi and Andrea Vindigni). His contributions have earned him election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, corresponding membership in the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, Fellowship of the Econometric Society, Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize (2021). Bénabou served as Coeditor of the American Economic Review (2014-2020) and held editorial roles at the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Public Economics, and others, influencing scholarship in Business & Economics.