Our empirical analysis shows that people who are interested in exercise commitment contracts choose longer contracts when nudged to do so, and are then more likely to meet their pre-stated exercise goals. People are also more likely to enroll in a subsequent commitment contract after the...

This paper studies optimal fiscal policy in an economy where heterogeneous agents with uncertain lifetimes coexist. We show that some plausible social welfare functions lead to time-inconsistent optimal plans, and we suggest restrictions on social preferences that avoid the problem. The...

We extend the semi-parametric estimation method for dynamic discrete choice models using Hotz and Miller's (1993) conditional choice probability (CCP) approach to the setting where individuals may have hyperbolic discounting time preferences and may be naive about their time inconsistency. We...

When solving discrete-time consumption models with present-biased time preferences, backwards induction generates equilibria that are non-robust in the sense that policy functions are often sensitive to parameter choices, including the modeler's choice of the time-step. The current paper...

Monetary policy decisions tend to be based on systematic analysis of alternative policy choices and their associated macroeconomic impacts: this is science. Fiscal policy choices, in contrast, spring from unsystematic speculation, grounded more in politics than economics: this is alchemy. In...

The behavioral revolution in economics has demonstrated that human beings often have difficulty making wise choices. The most widely chronicled difficulties arise for decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, those whose consequences unfold over significant amounts of time, and decisions...

I present and solve the problem of a producer who faces costs of acquiring, absorbing, and processing information. I establish a series of theoretical results describing the producer's behavior. First, I find the conditions under which she prefers to set a plan for the price she charges, or...

We experimentally study unanimity and majority voting rules in multilateral bargaining environments with stochastic future surplus. In these settings, reaching agreement when expected future surplus is sufficiently higher than the current surplus is inefficient. Theoretically, such...