Have rising income and consumption at the top of income distribution since the early 1980s induced households in the lower tiers of the distribution to consume a larger share of their income? Using state-year variation in income level and consumption in the top first quintile or decile of the...

We examine causes and consequences of relative income within households. We establish that gender identity – in particular, an aversion to the wife earning more than the husband – impacts marriage formation, the wife's labor force participation, the wife's income conditional on working,...

If people face cognitive limitations or biases that lead to financial mistakes, what are possible ways lawmakers can help? One approach is to remove the option of the bad decision; another approach is to increase financial education such that individuals can reason through choices when they...

While hypothesis testing is a highly formalized activity, hypothesis generation remains largely informal. We propose a procedure that uses machine learning algorithms—and their capacity to notice patterns that people might not—to generate novel hypotheses about human behavior. We illustrate...