Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

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.