By means of a laboratory experiment, we show that, contrary to standard consumer theory, financially equivalent balance sheet profiles may be perceived as non fungible in a controlled frictionless environment with no probabilistic attributes. A large majority of subjects indeed have a bias in...

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...

This paper investigates the determinants of academic achievements of post-reform undergraduate students of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Academic achievements are measured with the students’ grade point averages and time to graduation. The set of independent variables contains...

Differences in teacher quality are commonly cited as a key determinant of the huge international student performance gaps. However, convincing evidence on this relationship is still lacking, in part because it is unclear how to measure teacher quality consistently across countries. We use unique...

We study the influence of reason and intuition on decision making over time. Facing a sequence of similar problems, agents can either decide rationally according to expected utility theory or intuitively according to case-based decision theory. Rational decisions are more precise but create...

We propose a simple model of borrower optimism in competitive lending markets with asymmetric information. Borrowers in our model engage in self-deception to arrive at a belief that optimally trades off the anticipatory utility benefits and material costs of optimism. Lenders' contract design...

Children are increasingly recognized as secondary victims of intimate partner violence. This paper uses a unique UK longitudinal child development survey to study the relationship between verbal and physical abuse experienced by mothers and children's development up to the age of seven....

Inequality of opportunity strikes when two children with the same academic performance are sent to different quality schools because their parents differ in socio-economic status. Based on a novel dataset for Germany, we demonstrate that children are significantly less likely to enter the...

A nascent but burgeoning literature examines the importance of non-cognitive skills in determining success across many facets of life. The majority of these papers treat these skills as fixed traits for adults. We estimate the impact of a number of life events on the Big Five personality traits...

Time is a crucial determinant of deception, since some misreporting opportunities come as a surprise and require an intuitive decision while others allow for extensive reflection time. To be able to pursue a deceptive strategy, however, a subject must be aware of the misreporting opportunity....