In Memory of John Dickhaut

After earning his Ph.D. in 1970 from Ohio State University, John began his academic career at the University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor of Accounting, where he developed a passion for the experimental method.  Much of John's career was spent at the University of Minnesota (1976-2008) where he was the Honeywell Professor of Accounting and later held the Curtis L. Carlson Land Grant Chair in Accounting.  During his tenure at Minnesota John and his colleagues developed one of the world's top research accounting departments at the Carlson School of Management.  In 2008, John joined the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University as the Jerrold A. Glass Endowed Chair in Accounting and Economics.  This last position recognizes John's forty-year cross disciplinary campaign to more closely integrate the studies of accounting and economics using the experimental method.

John Dickhaut’s main research interest was to understand the role of information in accounting and economic institutions, and the effect of information on human decision making under uncertainty.  To accomplish this research John was one of the early developers of experimental economics.  A look at some of John's coauthored experimental work shows the importance he and his colleagues placed on combining theoretical modeling with experiments.  This can be seen in the development of the lottery procedure to induce von Neumann-Morgenstern preferences [1] and in the early adoption of computational methods to model behavior in experimental Double Auctions [2].  John's other major contributions in experimental economics include his work with coauthors on understanding 'sunk cost' behavior [3] and understanding the fundamental role of trust and reciprocity within organizations [4].  It was John's interest in information, economic experiments, and computational modeling that led him to do research in neuroeconomics.  

In 2002, John co-organized one of the first conferences in neuroeconomics at the University of Minnesota.  This workshop reflected his and coauthors interest in understanding how the brain encounters economic institutions in order to make economic decisions.  A look at some of John's coauthored research in neuroeconomics shows how studying the brain as a mechanism that makes economic choices can help understand the nature of these choices, starting with experiments in [5] - [8] and culminating in a model [8] of the choice process.  Most recently John and his coauthors were researching the evolutionary and neurological foundations of accounting institutions [9].  John's enthusiasm and intellectual depth attracted many students and faculty to work with him, and he will be dearly missed by all. 

[1]  Joyce E. Berg, Lane A. Daley, John W. Dickhaut and John R. O'Brien, "Controlling Preferences for Lotteries on Units of Experimental Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 101, No. 2 (May, 1986), pp. 281-306.

[2] Steven Gjerstad, John Dickhaut, "Price Formation in Double Auctions." Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 22, Issue 1, January 1998, pp. 1-29.

[3] Chandra Kanodia, Robert Bushman and John Dickhaut, "Escalation Errors and the Sunk Cost Effect: An Explanation Based on Reputation and Information Asymmetries." Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Spring, 1989), pp. 59-77.

[4]  Berg Joyce, Dickhaut John, McCabe Kevin, "Trust Reciprocity, and Social History."  Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 10, Issue 1, July 1995, pp. 122-142.

[5]  Kip Smith, John Dickhaut, Kevin McCabe and José V. Pardo, "Neuronal Substrates for Choice under Ambiguity, Risk, Gains, and Losses." Management Science, Vol. 48, No. 6 (Jun., 2002), pp. 711-718.

[6]  John Dickhaut, Kevin McCabe, Jennifer C. Nagode, Aldo Rustichini, Kip Smith, and José V. Pardo, From the Cover: "The impact of the certainty context on the process of choice." PNAS 2003, 100(6), pp. 3536-3541.

[7]  Aldo Rustichini, John Dickhaut, Paolo Ghirardato, Kip Smith, Jose V. Pardo, "A brain imaging study of the choice procedure," Games and Economic Behavior, Volume 52, Issue 2, Special Issue on Neuroeconomics, August 2005, Pages 257-282.

[8] John Dickhaut, Aldo Rustichini, and Vernon Smith, "A neuroeconomic theory of the decision process." PNAS 2009, 106(52). pp. 22145-22150.

[9]  Sudipta Basu, John Dickhaut, Gary Hecht, Kristy Towry, and Gregory Waymire, "Recordkeeping alters economic history by promoting reciprocity. " PNAS 2009, 106(4), 1009-1014.