Behavioral economics has demonstrated systematic decision-making biases in both lab and field data. But are these biases learned or innate? We investigate this question using experiments on a novel set of subjects — capuchin monkeys. By introducing a fiat currency and trade to a capuchin...

This paper proposes nonparametric statistical procedures for analyzing discrete choice models of affective decision making. We make two contributions to the literature on behavioral economics. Namely, we propose a procedure for eliciting the existence of a Nash equilibrium in an intrapersonal,...

We extend the standard model of general equilibrium with incomplete markets to allow for default and punishment. The equilibrating variables include expected delivery rates, along with the usual prices of assets and commodities. By reinterpreting the variables, our model encompasses a broad...

Savage (1954) provided a set of axioms on preferences over acts that were equivalent to the existence of an expected utility representation. We show that in addition to this representation, there is a continuum of other "expected utility" representations in which for any act, the probability...

We axiomatize, in an Anscombe-Aumann framework, the class of preferences that admit a representation of the form V(f) = mu - rho(d), where mu is the mean utility of the act f with respect to a given probability, d is the vector of state-by-state utility deviations from the mean, and rho(d) is a...

Most theories of risky choice postulate that a decision maker maximizes the expectation of a Bernoulli (or utility or similar) function. We tour 60 years of empirical search and conclude that no such functions have yet been found that are useful for out-of-sample prediction. Nor do we find...

We replicate the essentials of the Huettel et al. (2006) experiment on choice under uncertainty with 30 Yale undergraduates, where subjects make 200 pair-wise choices between risky and ambiguous lotteries. Inferences about the independence of economic preferences for risk and ambiguity are...

We propose a model of history-dependent risk attitude, allowing a decision maker’s risk attitude to be affected by his history of disappointments and elations. The decision maker recursively evaluates compound risks, classifying realizations as disappointing or elating using a threshold rule....

Introducing default and limited collateral into general equilibrium theory (GE) allows for a theory of endogenous contracts, including endogenous margin requirements on loans. This in turn allows GE to explain liquidity and liquidity crises in equilibrium. A formal definition of liquidity is...

Savage motivated his Sure Thing Principle by arguing that, whenever an act would be preferred if an event obtains and preferred if that event did not obtain, then it should be preferred overall. The idea that it should be possible to decompose and recompose decision problems in this way has...