Guy Mayraz
Program
Junior Fellow Academy
Appointment
Junior Fellow, Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being
Institution
Department of Economics
University of British Columbia
Country
Canada 
Guy Mayraz will become a CIFAR Junior Fellow in the Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being (SIIWB) program in the summer of 2012. During the first year of his fellowship, he will work as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of SIIWB Program Co-Director John Helliwell in the Department of Economics, University of British Columbia. In the second year, he will begin a tenure track junior faculty position in the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne.
Guy recently completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Economics at the University of Oxford and a position as Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance in the London School of Economics (LSE). At the Centre, he worked on a number of projects with former SIIWB program advisory committee member, Sir Richard Layard. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the LSE in 2009. He also holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University. In 2002, he published a paper on recognizing handwritten digits with Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception Program Director Geoffrey Hinton.
Guy’s research is in behavioural economics: combining the methods of economics with insights from psychology research. People are often motivated by the pursuit of happiness. But are they making the right choices? Guy has previously looked at the extent to which more money buys more happiness, both at the individual level and for society as a whole. In the SIIWB program, he expects to focus more on the importance of social interactions, and other non-material determinants of happiness. The ultimate aim of this research is practical, suggesting changes that individuals and groups can make to increase their happiness. A second research focus is the role of wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance in decision making. How should economic models change if people’s beliefs depend in part on what they want to be true? This part of Guy’s research involves both theory and experiments, and has implications for many different areas of economics research.
Guy recently completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Economics at the University of Oxford and a position as Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Performance in the London School of Economics (LSE). At the Centre, he worked on a number of projects with former SIIWB program advisory committee member, Sir Richard Layard. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics at the LSE in 2009. He also holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University. In 2002, he published a paper on recognizing handwritten digits with Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception Program Director Geoffrey Hinton.
Guy’s research is in behavioural economics: combining the methods of economics with insights from psychology research. People are often motivated by the pursuit of happiness. But are they making the right choices? Guy has previously looked at the extent to which more money buys more happiness, both at the individual level and for society as a whole. In the SIIWB program, he expects to focus more on the importance of social interactions, and other non-material determinants of happiness. The ultimate aim of this research is practical, suggesting changes that individuals and groups can make to increase their happiness. A second research focus is the role of wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance in decision making. How should economic models change if people’s beliefs depend in part on what they want to be true? This part of Guy’s research involves both theory and experiments, and has implications for many different areas of economics research.