PIMCO and University of Chicago’s Center for Decision Research Announce Partnership to Guide Wiser Decision-Making

• The Center’s Labs, part of the Chicago Booth School of Business, will be renamed the PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories.
• This includes plans to enhance research facilities in Chicago to foster greater engagement with the public.
• Enables CDR and PIMCO to better understand human judgment and decision making.

Newport Beach, California (September 27, 2018) – PIMCO, one of the world’s premier fixed income investment managers and the Center for Decision Research (CDR) at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business announce a partnership in support of CDR’s behavioral science research. In recognition of this investment in research, Chicago Booth’s CDR laboratories will be renamed the PIMCO Decision Research Laboratories and will include a new “storefront” behavioral science research lab to foster greater engagement with the public and to broaden the reach and increase diversity of participants in the research studies.

PIMCO has been a longstanding follower of the work of CDR and Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Thaler, Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at Chicago Booth, is also a current board member and visionary former director of the Center for Decision Research. Nicholas Epley, John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow at Chicago Booth, currently serves as Faculty Director of the CDR.

“This partnership is incredibly exciting to us. From PIMCO’s plans to disseminate CDR’s research findings, to conducting joint projects in behavioral science, the collaboration will have a transformational impact on our research enterprise,” said Madhav Rajan, Booth Dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting. “PIMCO’s spirit of experimentation and interest in asking real-time questions about investing and the economy make it the ideal partner for Booth.”

“This support will enable the CDR to take innovative steps to enhance our research infrastructure,” said Epley. “Conducting the highest impact behavioral science experiments requires being able to conduct experiments out in the world where people are actually living and working. PIMCO’s support will give us one of the most sophisticated laboratory operations in the world, running large-scale experiments in locations ranging from elite organizations to science museums to city sidewalks.”

PIMCO, an innovator in applying research to investment decisions, is excited to both support and participate in this academic research. CDR research draws insights from many disciplines – social psychology, cognitive psychology, economics, and neuroscience – to gain a deeper understanding of human behavior and decision making processes. The PIMCO Laboratories for Decision Research will yield scientific discoveries with the potential to improve individual and social welfare.

“PIMCO is always looking for inputs and data that challenge our ideas and assumptions as CDR researchers have been doing for years, so we look forward to building on this legacy together,” said Dan Ivascyn, PIMCO’s Group Chief Investment Officer. “Through this novel partnership, we hope to nurture exceptional insights into decision making behavior that will ultimately help PIMCO make wiser decisions for portfolios, clients and employees.”

PIMCO’s investment process - which includes quarterly investment forums, speaker series and the input of external advisors including industry and academic professionals - provides the firm with a diverse selection of external views and perspectives that guide PIMCO’s investment decisions. PIMCO with its industry renowned platform and reach to clients is excited to help amplify and disseminate the research of the CDR.

“Understanding how we behave and the decisions we make are critical to building on PIMCO’s strong culture of investing excellence and creating a diverse, engaging workplace, so we are excited to partner on this groundbreaking approach with Nick Epley and his incredible team at CDR,” said Emmanuel Roman, PIMCO’s Chief Executive Officer.

About the Center for Decision Research

CENTER FOR DECISION RESEARCH

The Center for Decision Research (CDR) at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is devoted to understanding human judgment and decision making. Faculty researchers use the CDR Labs to conduct cutting-edge studies and examine the processes where intuition, reasoning, and social interaction produce beliefs, judgments, and choices. Understanding these decision making processes has critical applications in a variety of contexts including management, marketing, health, finance, and public policy.