Through a field experiment in Sri Lanka I analyze the role of experimentally-induced memories of 2004 tsunami on behavior in a trust game in which personal notions of cheating are elicited. Microfinance borrowers were randomly assigned to a treatment (control) group consisting in watching a...

We analyze the effects of resale through bargaining in multi-object uniform-price auctions with asymmetric bidders. The possibility of resale affects bidders’ strategies, and hence the allocation of the objects on sale and the seller’s revenue. Our experimental design consists of four...

Natural disasters have been shown to produce effects on social capital, risk and time preferences of victims. We run experiments on altruistic preferences on a sample of Sri Lankan microfinance borrowers affected/unaffected by the tsunami shock in 2004 at a 7-year distance from the event (a...

This study designs a laboratory experiment to investigate the link between personal responsibility and individual preferences for redistribution. We contribute to the literature by considering two key insights: first, effort is costly; second, its fruits can be grasped only in the future....

We consider a model of occupational choice with credit market imperfections and local non convexities in education investment. The implications of individual heterogeneity for the evolution of wealth distribution and policies are studied. Convergence of the wealth distribution is obtained...

In the presence of transactions costs, no matter how small, arbitrage activity does not necessarily render equal all riskless rates of return. When two such rates follow stochastic processes, it is not optimal immediately to arbitrage out any discrepancy that arises between them. The reason is...

We review different empirical approaches that researchers have taken to estimate how consumption responds to income changes. We critically evaluate the empirical evidence on the sensitivity of consumption to predicted income changes, distinguishing between the traditional excess sensitivity...

The theoretical literature suggests that taxation can have a large impact on household portfolio selection and allocation. In this paper we consider the tax treatment of life insurance, considering the cancellation of tax incentives in Italian life insurance contracts for investors with high...

This paper derives and estimates a model where durable and non-durable consumption are allowed to be non-separable in utility and individuals face a convex adjustment cost whenever they want to purchase a new durable good. Subjective expectations data allow to identify and estimate the marginal...

A trade union whose purpose is to raise wages above the competitive level may foster economic growth if it succeeds in shifting income away from the owners of capital to the workers and if the workers' marginal propensity to save exceeds the one of capitalists. We make this point in an...