Lydia AshtonAssistant Professor

Lydia Ashton is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Madison’s Consumer Science Department and a fellow at Institute for Research on Poverty. She received her Ph.D. in agricultural and resources economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are in psychology and economics, experimental economics, and public economics. She has used both lab and field experiments as well as big data to study the effect that psychology and physiology (e.g. inattention, fatigue, hunger) have on economic decision-making. In general, her research focuses on using principles and tools from psychology, neurophysiology and biology to better understand individual decision-making processes.

Ashton holds a B.S. in economics from the Universidad de Monterrey. She has also worked designing and implementing large scale household surveys and experiments used in various academic studies ranging from topics on retirement savings and social security privatization to income shocks and consumption patterns for low-income households.