Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral Economics: A Bibliographic Analysis of Research Field

Abstract

Behavioral economics and artificial intelligence (AI) have been two rapidly growing fields of research over the past few years. While behavioral economics aims to combine concepts from psychology, sociology, and neuroscience with classical economic thoughts to understand human decision-making processes in the complex economic environment, AI on the other hand, focuses on creating intelligent machines that can mimic human cognitive abilities such as learning, problem-solving, decision-making, and language understanding. The intersection of these two fields has led to thrilling research theories and practical applications. This study provides a bibliometric analysis of the literature on AI and behavioral economics to gain insight into research trends in this field. We conducted this bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science database on articles published between 2012 and 2022 that were related to AI and behavioral economics. VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R package were utilized to identify influential authors, journals, institutions, and countries in the field. Network analysis was also performed to identify the main research themes and their interrelationships. The analysis revealed that the number of publications on AI and behavioral economics has been increasing steadily over the past decade. We found that most studies focused on customer and consumer behavior, including topics such as decision-making under uncertainty, neuroeconomics, and behavioral game theory, combined mainly with machine learning and deep learning techniques. We also identified several emerging themes, including the use of AI in nudging and prospect theory in behavioral finance, as well as undeveloped themes such as AI-driven behavioral macroeconomics. The findings suggests that there is a need for more interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers in behavioral economics and AI. We also suggest that future research on AI and behavioral economics further consider the ethical implications of using AI and behavioral insights in decision-making. This study can serve as a valuable resource for researchers interested in AI and behavioral economics.