Collective consumption decisions taken by the members of a household may prove inefficient. The impact on market performance depends on whether household inefficiencies are caused by inefficient net trades with the market or by inefficient distribution of resources within households. Inefficient...

This paper studies a married couple s dynamic investment and consumption choices under the assumption that the couple cannot commit across time not to renegotiate their decisions. The inefficiencies that can arise are characterized. Efficiency properties of different divorce asset-division...

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...

Hyperbolic discounting with naiveté is widely believed to provide a better explanation than exponential discounting of why people borrow so much and why they wait so long to save for retirement. We reach a different set of conclusions. We show that if financial planning is enriched to include...

Using the data on maintenance expenditures and self-assessed house value, I separate the measure of individual housing stock and house prices, and use these data for testing whether nondurable consumption and housing are characterized by intratemporal nonseparability in households’...

This paper focuses on whether households facing economic scarcity tend to change consumption priorities as measured by the share of spending on necessity goods relative to luxury goods in a large national supermarket chain in Israel for the years 2011-2018. Based on detailed weekly revenue data...

We study the redistributive effects of inflation combining administrative bank data with an information provision experiment during an episode of historic inflation. On average, households are well-informed about prevailing inflation and are concerned about its impact on their wealth; yet, while...

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

We discuss a simple model of choices of joint consumption by a working couple who place maintenance of their marriage (relationship) above all else. Any proposal made by one partner seeking to provide maximal utility to the other so as to preserve the marriage, in the case where preferences of...