We provide experimental evidence that core intertemporal choice anomalies -- including extreme short-run impatience, structural estimates of present bias, hyperbolicity and transitivity violations -- are driven by complexity rather than time or risk preferences. First, all anomalies also arise...

We demonstrate the pitfalls when extrapolating behavioral findings across different contexts and decision environments. We focus on regret theory and the use of "regret lotteries" for motivating behavior change. Here, findings from one-shot settings have been used to promote regret as a tool to...

We propose a framework where perceptions of uncertainty are driven by the interaction between cognitive constraints and the way that people learn about it--whether information is presented sequentially or simultaneously. People can learn about uncertainty by observing the distribution of...

What causes adverse policing outcomes, such as excessive uses of force and unnecessary arrests? Prevailing explanations focus on problematic officers or deficient regulations and oversight. Here, we introduce a new, overlooked perspective. We suggest that the cognitive demands inherent in...

In an experiment that elicits subjects' willingness to pay (WTP) for the outcome of a lottery, we confirm the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes described by Kahneman and Tversky. In addition, we document a systematic effect of stake sizes on the magnitude and sign of the relative risk premium,...

We propose a theory of the complexity of economic decisions. Leveraging a macroeconomic framework of production functions, we conceptualize the mind as a cognitive economy, where a task's complexity is determined by its composition of cognitive operations. Complexity emerges as the inverse of...

Uncertainty is a ubiquitous concern emphasized by policymakers. We study how uncertainty affects decision-making by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). We distinguish between the notion of Fed-managed uncertainty vis-a-vis uncertainty that emanates from within the economy and which the Fed...

This paper uses U.S. loan-level credit register data and the 2018-2019 Trade War to test for the effects of international trade uncertainty on domestic credit supply. We exploit cross-sectional heterogeneity in banks' ex-ante exposure to trade uncertainty and find that an increase in trade...

Human decision-makers frequently override the recommendations generated by predictive algorithms, but it is unclear whether these discretionary overrides add valuable private information or reintroduce human biases and mistakes. We develop new quasi-experimental tools to measure the impact of...

"Firms in Africa report "regulatory and economic policy uncertainty" as a top constraint to their growth. We argue that often firms in Africa do not cope with policy rules, rather they face deals; firm-specific policy actions that can be influenced by firm actions (e.g. bribes) and...