In this paper we use the property that certainty equivalence, as implied by a first-order approximation to the solution of stochastic discrete-time models, breaks in its equivalent continuous-time version. We study the extent to which a first-order approximated solution built by perturbation...

We measure individual-level loss aversion using three incentivized, representative surveys of the U.S. population (combined N = 3,000). We find that around 50% of the U.S. population is loss tolerant, with many participants accepting negative-expected-value gambles. This is counter to earlier...

The quasi-linear quadratic utility model is widely used in economics. The knowledge of its exact origin is less widespread. A first contribution of the paper is to explain the genesis of this model. Next, we review the main properties of the general model, mainly following the previous...

Whether people seek or avoid risks on gambling, insurance, asset, or labor markets crucially depends on the skewness of the underlying probability distribution. In fact, people typically seek positively skewed risks and avoid negatively skewed risks. We show that salience theory of choice under...

This paper introduces a formal definition and an experimental measurement of the concept of cognitive uncertainty: people's subjective uncertainty about what the optimal action is. This concept allows us to bring together and partially explain a set of behavioral anomalies identified across four...

Two non-transitive theories to model decision making under risk are regret theory (Loomes and Sugden, 1982, 1987) and salience theory (Bordalo, Gennaioli, and Shleifer, 2012). While the psychological underpinning of these two approaches is different, the models share the assumption that...

This paper studies the relevance of cognitive uncertainty – subjective uncertainty over one’s utility-maximizing action – for understanding and predicting intertemporal choice. The main idea is that when people are cognitively noisy, such as when a decision is complex, they implicitly...

This paper analyzes sin goods consumption when individuals exhibit present-focused preferences. It considers three types of present focus: present-bias with varying degrees of naiveté, Gul-Pesendorfer preferences, and a dual-self approach. We investigate the incentives to deviate from healthy...

We examine the effects of monetary policy on household self-assessed financial stress and durable consumption using panel data from eighteen annual waves of the British Household Panel Survey. For identification, we exploit random variation in household exposure to interest rates generated by...

We document systematic and significant time variation in US lifecycle non-durable consumption profiles. Consumption profiles have consistently become flatter: differences in consumption across generations have decreased. Pooling data across different periods to identify lifecycle profiles masks...