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Saurabh

Bhargava

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Visiting Associate Professor
The University of Chicago
Booth School of Business
saurabh.bhargava@chicagobooth.edu

Bhargava_full_bw_vert_edited.jpg

Visiting Associate Professor
University of Chicago
Booth School of Business

saurabh.bhargava@chicagobooth.edu

Dr. Saurabh Bhargava is a Behavioral Economist currently serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of Economics at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he teaches managerial decision-making with an emphasis on perspectives from machine learning and AI. He previously served as an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directed the undergraduate program in Behavioral Economics. He is an academic affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Dr. Bhargava's research explores decision-making and optimal policy design in contexts such as health insurance, retirement savings, program take-up, and employee motivation, often leveraging large-scale field experiments and data analytics. A secondary research interest involves data-driven investigations into happiness and well-being. His work has appeared in leading journals like the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, Psychological Science, and JAMA, and featured in major media outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, VoxBBC, CNBC, and NPR. He has translated his research for general audiences in outlets such as the Harvard Business Review.

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Prior to academia, Dr. Bhargava worked at McKinsey & Company and holds an AB from Harvard University and a PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley.

New Research

1. Bhargava, S. “Experienced Love: An Empirical Account,” Psychological Science, Vol. 35, Issue 7, 2023 (Online First). [Lead Article]

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2. Bhargava, S., and Hyde, T. “Partition at Your Own Risk: Evidence on Risk-Taking Prevalence and Motives from the Field,” 2024. [Under Review]

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3. Bhargava, S., and Conell-Price, L. “Serenity Now, Save Tomorrow? Evidence on Retirement Savings Puzzles from a 401(k) Field Experiment,” 2022. [Under Review]

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4. Bhargava, S., Conell-Price, L., Mason, R., and Benartzi, S. “Save(d) by Design?” 2021. [Under Review]

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5. Bhargava, S., and Connolly, D., “Does Noise Trump Bias? Candidate Polarization with Noisy Voters,” 2023.

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6. Bhargava, S. “New Evidence on the Hedonic and Time-Use Consequences of Children,” 2020. 

Health

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Household Finance

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Policy

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Well-Being

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© 2025 by Saurabh Bhargava

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