Professor Ryan Oprea wins 2021 Exeter Prize for Best Paper: "What Makes a Rule Complex"

Professor Ryan Oprea won the 2021 Exeter Prize for Best Paper in the fields of Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Decision Theory. 

October 8, 2021

Economics Professor Ryan Oprea won the 2021 Exeter Prize for best paper published in the fields of Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics, and Decision Theory.

Oprea's winning paper, "What Makes a Rule Complex," was published in American Economic Review in the previous calendar year. 

"This paper offers a new impetus for research, getting us outside of our comfortable box of constrained optimization," the Exeter Prize Committee said. "This is a risky and challenging attempt, with a high upside potential."

Oprea currently holds the Maxwell C. and Mary Pellish Endowed Chair of Economics, and has been teaching Economics for over 15 years. His research was picked from a competitive pool of nominations, including papers published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Psychological Review.

This is the second time Oprea has won the Exeter Prize, after being recognized for "A Continuous Dilemma," a paper coauthored with UC Santa Cruz Professor Daniel Friedman in 2012. 

A virtual event will be hosted to celebrate the award.