David Leiser is a specialist in Economic Psychology.

He is past-President of the Economic Psychology division of the Inteational Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), a former President of the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology (IAREP), founder and past Director of the Inter — Faculty Center for Decision Making and Economic Psychology (DMEP) at Ben Gurion University, Israel, where he is Full Professor of Sociald Economic Psychology, and co-founder and Deputy Director of our Center.

Prof. Leiser holds a BSc in Mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a MS in Adult Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana — Champaign, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where he served as Research Assistant to Jean Piaget. He held visiting positions at the Universities of Chicago, MIT, Yale, Harvard, Paris 2 (Panthéon-Assas) Paris 5 (René Descartes) and Paris 7 (Diderot)

Prof. Leiser studies human understanding and decision making, with an emphasis on investigating how non-economists understand economic issues. Such studies aim to inform efforts to improve financial literacy and to enhance communication with the public by the authorities and financial institutions and to guide public policy.

Recent projects of his Lab include the impact of conflict of interest disclosure, a detailed analysis of public understanding of pension, recommendations for radical redesign of forms concerning pension funds, and debts among young adults, and a systematic study of personality traits and specific maladptive economic functioning.