Catherine Eckel, Sarah and John Lindsey Professor in the Liberal Arts and University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics at Texas A&M University, gave several talks at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, Australia, during July 2016.

Dr. Eckel gave an F.H. Gruen Public Lecture on “Shopping for Trust” on July 19, 2016. In contrast to most research on trust, in this study (joint with Rick Wilson) Dr. Eckel uses lab experiments to show that choosing a partner substantially increases trust and reciprocity in an incentivized trust game.  Partner choice is based on viewing the photographs of potential counterparts, and trusters are able to select counterparts who are more trustworthy.  That is, potential partners that appear to be honest and trustworthy prove to reciprocate larger amounts in the trust game.

She also gave two talks to ANU’s Gender Institute on July 20, 2016 (pictured below).  These consisted of a talk on mentoring female graduate students and junior faculty, and another one on lab experimental research on gender differences in financial market behavior.