Saurabh Bhargava

Saurabh Bhargava is a Visiting Associate Professor of Economics at the Booth School of Business, The University of Chicago, and a former Associate Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an academic affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at Masachusetts Institute of Technology.

Education: He holds an AB from Harvard University and a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley. Prior to academia, he worked at McKinsey & Company.

Research Interests: His work lies at the intersection of behavioral economics, public policy, health economics, and finance. Key areas include:

• Health Insurance: Complexity, choice architecture, and behavioral interventions.
• Retirement Savings: Field experiments on savings puzzles and auto-escalation.
• Decision-Making: Risk-taking, contrast effects (e.g., speed dating), and heuristics in policy design.
• Happiness & Well-Being: Data-driven analysis of emotional welfare and time-use.

Media & Consulting: His research has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Vox. He has consulted with organizations like the IRS, DOJ, and firms such as Pittsburgh Penguins and Voya Financial.

Article Trends: His publications focus on behavioral economics applications in health insurance (e.g., complexity and dominated options), retirement savings (field experiments), and well-being (boredom, parental happiness). Keywords include Decision-Making, Policy Design, Machine Learning, and Health Economics.

Expert Engagement: He has participated in roundtables hosted by The Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution, and Russell Sage Foundation.