UCSB economics professor Peter Kuhn will discuss the minutiae of the nation’s economy this Saturday.

Kuhn’s lecture will focus on behavioral economics and consider the role of bureaucracy in decision-making. His lecture will also explore how knowledgeable the average American citizen is of the nation’s current economic crisis.

The meeting will be held at 2:30 p.m. in the patio room at Vista del Monte, 3775 Modoc Road, Santa Barbara.

Sandy Garcia, Humanist Society of Santa Barbara program chair, said the board chose Kuhn as a lecturer because of his background in behavioral and personal economics.

“We always look for someone passionate in their field to attend our meetings,” Garcia said. “It is important to us that we have a lecturer who will engage the society’s members and the individuals of the community that attend. We look to use his expertise and wisdom as a way to draw the community together in deep discussion.”

According to Kuhn, financial incentives don’t always motivate people to work more efficiently or productively, and can negatively affect job performance.

“My hope for the talk is just to get people thinking about these issues,” Kuhn said. “We hear a lot of claims recently that seem to suggest that strong financial incentives are needed to get people to do just about anything and the research suggests that, while financial incentives certainly do affect peoples’ behavior, it is a lot more complicated than that.”

Derek Mead, a third-year economics major, said Kuhn will address how labor economics affects personnel and human resource decisions within a business.

“I know that I have already learned so much from just taking one of professor Kuhn’s courses, and this has given me the knowledge of the different methods that go on within a business,” Mead said. “I think that the community members who attend the meeting will greatly benefit from hearing his lecture because they’ll learn more about the competitive labor market and how internal proceedings work in the field that they work in.”