The Jerusalem Economics, Society, and Culture (JESC) lab, headed by Professor Heffetz, is an economics research group that uses a variety of data sources to study the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of economic behavior, well-being, and policy. We use—and study—various methodologies, including lab and field surveys and experiments, real-world observations, and administrative records.
Our work investigates, for example, what one can and cannot learn from economic and well-being indicators—household expenditures, the unemployment rate, or self-reported happiness—and how governments can use such data to guide policy. In particular, we study how people interpret and respond to survey questions, and how the resulting data are affected. We also study people's economic perceptions, inferences, beliefs, and expectations, how they are related to behavior, and how policymakers can take them into account to design better policies and markets. For example, we study product visibility and conspicuous consumption, how people infer quality from prices, choose relative to reference points, and respond to reminders, deadlines, menu descriptions, guarantees of data privacy, or public information about health risk.
Photo Credit: Revital Topiol
Prof. Ori Heffetz
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Working Papers
Published Papers
Photo Credit: Revital Topiol
Guy Ishai (member: 2017-today)
PhD candidate in Economics
Keren-Or Barashi Gortler (member: 2023-today)
Research Assistant
Gabriela Cohen Hadid (member: 2023-2024)
MSc student in data science at the Technion
Ohad Weschler (member: 2023-2024)
Economist in the public sector
Ofer Rubinstein (member: 2023-2024)
Economist in the public sector
Ayala Goldfarb (member: 2022-2024)
Economist in the public sector
Shenhav Or (member: 2022-2023)
Economist in the public sector
Ofri Piltz (member: 2022-2023)
ESG consultant
Shira Tzadik (member: 2022-2023)
MA student at HUJI
Josef Mccrum (member: 2022-2023)
MA student at HUJI
Tal Asif (member: 2021-2024)
PhD student at HUJI
Itamar Bellaiche (member: 2021-2024)
PhD student at NYU
Yonatan Rahimi (member: 2021-2023)
MA student at HUJI
Ronny Gelman (member: 2021-2023)
MSc student in mathematics at HUJI
Jonathan Peled (member: 2021-2022)
Law research assistant
Ilana Lavie (member: 2021-2022)
Omri Goren (member: 2021)
Shira Biblarsh (member: 2020-2022)
MA student at HUJI
Tamar Yerushalmi (member: 2020-2022)
PhD student at Stanford
Lev Maresca (member: 2020-2022)
PhD student at NYU
Guy Lichtinger (member: 2020-2021)
PhD student at Harvard
Ophir Halperin (member: 2020-2021)
Game economy manager
Yedidya Lau (member: 2019-2024)
PhD student at HUJI
Matan Gibson (member: 2018-2020)
PhD student at Tel Aviv University
Yotam Peterfreund (member: 2018-2020)
Economist in the public sector
Ophir Averbuch (member: 2018-2019)
PhD student at Harvard
Aharon Haver (member: 2017-2022)
Analyst
Kobi Mizrahi (member: 2017-2021)
PhD student at Princeton
Bnaya Dreyfuss (member: 2017-2020)
PhD student at Harvard
Inbal Dekel (member: 2017-2018)
PhD student at HUJI
Netta Bar Ziv (member: 2017-2018)
Economist in the public sector
Maya Catabi (member: 2016-2018)
Strategy manager, (MSc, LSE)
Daniel Wood (member: 2016-2017)
Founder of Nightguard.co.il
Assaf Kott (member: 2016-2017)
Assistant professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (PhD, Brown)
Contact Us
Prof. Ori Heffetz
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel
Room 22404
Tel: +972-02-5883063
