Drazen Prelec is a professor of management science and economics in the MIT Sloan School of Management

MIT Sloan School of Management

The MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....

, and a pioneer in the field of neuroeconomics

Neuroeconomics

Neuroeconomics is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to explain human decision making, the ability to process multiple alternatives and to choose an optimal course of action. It studies how economic behavior can shape our understanding of the brain, and how neuroscientific discoveries can...

.

Prelec studied applied mathematics

Applied mathematics

Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...

 as an undergraduate at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, and went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard in experimental psychology

Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...

. He joined the MIT faculty in 1991.

A study by Prelec and Duncan Simester showed that people buying tickets to sporting events would be willing to pay significantly higher prices using credit cards than they would for cash purchases. Prelec also devised a system for eliciting more truthful answers to polls

Opinion poll

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...

based on paired questions in which one question of each pair asks about the respondent's own opinion and the other asks the respondent to estimate others' opinions.