The extent to which individuals discount the future and whether they discount in a time-consistent fashion is an important determinant of their life outcomes. Using a field experiment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we show that direct exposure to violence substantially increases present...

Under regret theory, decision-makers derive utility both from the outcome of their chosen action and the counterfactual. Evidence for anticipatory regret aversion has been found in oneshot settings, with "regret lotteries" that always reveal outcomes, as a counterfactual on non-entry, being...

In this chapter, we discuss the "lab-in-the-field" methodology, which combines elements of both lab and field experiments in using standardized, validated paradigms from the lab in targeting relevant populations in naturalistic settings. We begin by examining how the methodology has been used to...

We study the role of heuristic versus deliberative processing in intertemporal choice. Using studies in the Democratic Republic of Congo and an online labor market, we show that waiting periods - designed to prompt deliberation by temporally separating news about choice sets from choices...

There is growing interest in the use of loss contracts that offer performance incentives as upfront payments that employees can lose. Standard behavioral models predict a tradeoff in the use of loss contracts: employees will work harder under loss contracts than under gain contracts; but,...

We introduce a simple, easy to implement instrument for jointly eliciting risk and ambiguity attitudes. Using this instrument, we structurally estimate a two-parameter model of preferences. Our findings indicate that ambiguity aversion is significantly overstated when risk neutrality is assumed....

We propose a simple mechanism of mimetic dominance whereby a person's valuation for consuming an object or possessing an attribute is increasing in others' unmet desire for it. Such mimetic preferences help explain a host of market anomalies and generate novel predictions in a variety of...

Prior work has demonstrated that prosocial incentives - where individuals' effort benefits a charitable organization - can be more effective than standard incentives, particularly when the stakes are low. Yet, little is known about the effectiveness of prosocial incentives on people's decisions...