Leonardo Bursztyn is a behavioral economics expert focusing on social media, digital platforms, and network goods. Through experiments and innovative survey methods, often combined, Professor Bursztyn’s research examines how social forces shape economic decisions in consumer, financial, educational, labor, and political contexts. His work bears on issues arising in cases alleging fraud against consumers, as well as antitrust, discrimination, and digital markets disputes.
Research on network goods, digital markets, and behavioral economics
Professor Bursztyn addresses consumer welfare, demand, and market power issues in digital markets. To measure demand for network goods—products whose value to each user depends on how many others use them—he has developed experimental methods that also quantify spillovers to nonusers. Professor Bursztyn has also analyzed market power in the smartphone industry and the social dynamics of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption.
Beyond digital markets, Professor Bursztyn’s work spans consumer finance, education, and labor economics. In these contexts, he has studied peer effects in financial decision-making, moral incentives in credit card debt repayment, demand for status goods, social norms and labor force participation, and peer pressure in education. His research combines randomized field experiments, incentivized surveys, and observational data to measure consumer preferences, demand, and welfare issues.
Professor Bursztyn publishes his work in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies. He serves as an editor of the Journal of Political Economy.
Research leadership and affiliations
Professor Bursztyn founded and directs The Normal Lab at the University of Chicago, which examines the interplay between individuals and social environments. He also codirects the Becker Friedman Institute’s Political Economics Research Initiative and Program in Behavioral Economics Research, initiatives that examine, respectively, the political factors and psychological mechanisms that influence economic behavior.
Professor Bursztyn is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and The Pearson Institute.
Speaking engagements and media coverage
A frequent keynote speaker, Professor Bursztyn presents his research at conferences and universities worldwide. News media that have cited his work include The Atlantic, Bloomberg, The Economist, the Financial Times, Le Monde, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post.
Teaching and visiting scholarly appointments
At the University of Chicago, Professor Bursztyn has taught behavioral, experimental, and development economics to undergraduate and Ph.D. students. He previously served on the faculty of the UCLA Anderson School of Management and has held visiting appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley.