Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

The natural continuation to create conditions to promote interdisciplinary research

The Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences is the natural continuation and consolidation of TSE’s initiative to create conditions to promote interdisciplinary research, instigated in 2011 by Nobel Prize laureate Jean Tirole through the creation of the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).  

The Department is the academic home both for economists – in behavioral economics, cultural economics, economic history, law and economics, and political economy – and for scholars in other social and behavioral sciences, such as evolutionary anthropology, evolutionary biology, history, law, political science, psychology, and sociology.  

The aim is to foster groundbreaking interdisciplinary research, not only between economics and other disciplines, but also between other disciplines.   

The Department will also develop multi-disciplinary teaching programmes. 

In sum, the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences provides a unique environment to push the frontiers of economics and several other disciplines within the unified scientific project on which IAST was built, namely  to study the behavior of human beings as evolved biological organisms who live in groups, form networks and coalitions, are governed by formal institutions, informal norms, and religious and cultural practices, produce and exchange scarce resources and are inspired by ideals and beliefs. 

The Department will keep close ties with IAST, notably through joint seminar series, and also through IAST’s Research Fellow and Visiting Fellow programs.

Job Opportunities

The Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) at the Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) regularly offers jobs for Postdoctoral Researchers with a PhD in psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, or related disciplines.

Summer School 2026

The Toulouse Summer School in Quantitative Social Sciences at Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST) offers an interdisciplinary program in the social and behavioral sciences. The summer school is open to PhD students in economics and other disciplines. 

More information

Seminars and Conferences

Past

We need a science of cultural evolution for the 21st century_cancelled

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 20 June 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Paul E. Smaldino

Détails

Past

Manipulating Information through Repression

  • Seminar

  • IAST Lunch Seminar

  • Date 16 June 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Felix Dwinger

Détails

Past

Religion and Prosociality: New Data on Very Old Questions

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 13 June 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Azim Shariff

Détails

Past

The social gradient in time and risk preferences and its implications for access to higher education

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 6 June 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Coralie Chevallier

Détails

Past

The invisible threads: Estimating social cohesion based on broad acquaintanceship networks

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 30 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Miranda Lubbers

Détails

Past

(When) are lobbying expenditures a good proxy for lobbying activity?

  • Seminar

  • IAST Lunch Seminar

  • Date 26 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Sebastian Thieme

Détails

Past

Search Costs, Intermediation, and Trade: Experimental Evidence from Ugandan Agricultural Markets

  • Seminar

  • Behavior, Institutions, and Development Seminar

  • Date 25 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4

  • Speaker or organiser Lauren Falcao Bergquist

Détails

Past

Measuring and controlling divisiveness in rank aggregation

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 23 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Umberto Grandi

Détails

Past

Moral Flexibility in Human and Machine Minds

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 16 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Sydney Levine

Détails

Past

State Capacity, Legibility and State-Society Relations: Evidence from the French Napoleonic Cadaster.

  • Seminar

  • IAST Lunch Seminar

  • Date 12 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Anne Degrave

Détails

Past

Farmers to Entrepreneurs

  • Seminar

  • Behavior, Institutions, and Development Seminar

  • Date 11 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4

  • Speaker or organiser Giacomo De Giorgi

Détails

Past

Experiment aversion does not appear to generalize

  • Seminar

  • IAST General Seminar

  • Date 9 May 2023

  • Place Auditorium 4 (First floor - TSE Building)

  • Speaker or organiser Nina Mažar

Détails

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Contact

Jean-François Bonnefon

Department Chair

Jonathan Stieglitz

Scientific Deputy Director

Kristin Michelitch

Teaching Deputy Director

See the publications list

Last news

“The State Facing Its Barbarians”: How Can Terrorism Be Turned Into Statistics?

  • Outreach

  • Corporate

  • IAST

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

Jérôme Ferret has just published "L'État face à ses barbares" (The State Confronted by Its Barbarians) published by Hermann. A sociologist, he teaches the fundamentals of sociology to second-year undergraduates at…

Published on 2 November 2026

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Économie du désordre mondial (Economy of Global Disorder) : A Best-Seller That Fuels Public Debate

  • Corporate

  • Research

  • TSE Research

  • Development

  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

  • Economics

Erosion of multilateralism, strategic priorities, belief traps... As we begin the 2026 academic year, Jean Tirole and Karine Van der Straeten are contributing their insights to the public debate with the release…

Published on 19 October 2026

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