The favorite-longshot bias describes the longstanding empirical regularity that betting odds provide biased estimates of the probability of a horse winning--longshots are overbet, while favorites are underbet. Neoclassical explanations of this phenomenon focus on rational gamblers who overbet...

We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and a series of experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. Across settings, people accept risk as part of a "loss-exit" strategy--planning to continue...

The Ellsberg paradox suggests that people behave differently in risky situations -- when they are given objective probabilities -- than in ambiguous situations when they are not told the odds (as is typical in financial markets). Such behavior is inconsistent with subjective expected utility...

We propose a new framework for pricing assets, derived in part from the traditional consumption-based approach, but which also incorporates two long-standing ideas in psychology: prospect theory, and evidence on how prior outcomes affect risky choice. Consistent with prospect theory, the...

We study a model of social learning and communication using hard anecdotal evidence. There are two Bayesian agents (a sender and a receiver) who wish to communicate. The receiver must take an action whose payoff depends on their personal preferences and an unknown state of the world. The sender...

Whether, and to what extent, behavioral anomalies uncovered in the lab manifest themselves in the field remains of first order importance in finance and economics. We begin by examining behavior of retail traders/investors making investment decisions in constructed laboratory markets. Our...

We implemented a field experiment designed to increase participants' willingness to visit a health clinic. We find differential responses to a $50 incentive framed as a loss versus framed as a gain. We find little support for the notion that loss aversion is responsible for the effectiveness of...

Estimation of discontinuities is pervasive in applied economics: from the study of sheepskin effects to prospect theory and "bunching" of reported income on tax returns, models that predict discontinuities in outcomes are uniquely attractive for empirical testing. However, existing empirical...

Deferred Acceptance (DA), a widely implemented algorithm, is meant to improve allocations: under classical preferences, it induces preference-concordant rankings. However, recent evidence shows that--in both real, large-stakes applications and experiments--participants frequently play seemingly...

In many settings, decision-makers' behavior is observed to vary based on seemingly arbitrary factors. Such framing effects cast doubt on the welfare conclusions drawn from revealed preference analysis. We relax the assumptions underlying that approach to accommodate settings in which framing...