This paper shows that households with positional concerns and convex status utility use gambling to attempt leapfrogging in the social hierarchy. We test this theoretical prediction relying on household data that is representative for Germany, proxying the status orientation of households by...

We study an investment experiment conducted with a representative sample of German households. Respondents invest in a safe asset and a risky asset whose return is tied to the German stock market. Experimental investments correlate with beliefs about stock market returns and exhibit desirable...

Government student loan programs must balance the need to enforce repayment among borrowers who can afford to make their payments with some form of forgiveness or repayment assistance for those who cannot. Using unique survey and administrative data from the Canada Student Loan Program, we show...

Multiplicative growth processes that are subject to random shocks often have a skewed distribution of outcomes. In a number of incentivized laboratory experiments we show that a large majority of participants either strongly underestimate skewness or ignore it completely. Participants...

Financial inclusion is crucial for the inclusive and sustainable economic growth of developing countries. Access to financial services to all citizens, particularly to low income and poor people is a key to promote inclusive growth. While rural financial inclusion assumes importance from policy...

We still know little about what motivates the informal care arrangements provided in old age. The introduction of demand-side subsidies such as unconditional caregiving allowances (cash benefits designed either to incentivize the provision of informal care, or compensate for the loss of...

We study the effect of further public caregiving subsidies (and insurance expansions to cover long-term care) on savings and saving behaviour. Specifically, weexamine the unique progressive introduction of a universal public long-term care subsidy (Sistema para la Autonomía y Atención a la...

Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) economies have had the highest degree of dependency on received remittances worldwide over the last three decades. The region has also had the highest non-oil external trade balance deficit among developing countries. We examine the role of remittances in...

Evaluating a new survey dataset of German consumers, we test whether individual consumption plans are formed according to an Euler equation derived from consumption life-cycle models. Estimating several consumption Euler equations, the results are mostly in line with the theory: We find evidence...

We document five effects of providing individuals with crowdsourced spending information about their peers (individuals with similar characteristics) through a FinTech app. First, users who spend more than their peers reduce their spending significantly, whereas users who spend less keep...