We present evidence from a natural field experiment designed to shed light on whether individual behavior is consistent with a neoclassical model of utility maximization subject to budget constraints. We do this through the lens of a field experiment on charitable giving. We find that the...

This paper analyzes optimal product lines when consumers differ both in their taste for quality and in their desire for social image. The market outcome features partial pooling and product differentiation that is not driven by heterogeneous valuations for quality but by image concerns. A...

This paper analyzes consumers' privacy choice concerning their private data and firms' ensuing pricing strategy. The General Data Protection Regulation passed by the European Union in May 2018 allows consumers to decide whether to reveal private information in the form of cookies to an online...

Current time allocation and household production models face three major weaknesses: First, they only describe the average time allocation. Thus, information about the order of activities is lost. Therefore, it is impossible to describe the influence of activities on later ones. Such...

Although gambling is primarily an economic activity, no single theory of the demand for gambles has gained wide-spread acceptance among economists. This paper proposes a simple model of the demand for gambling that is based on the standard economic assumptions that (1) resources are scarce and...

In this paper, we match data on student performance in a multiple-choice exam with data on student risk preferences that are extracted from a classroom experiment. We find that more-loss-averse students leave more questions unanswered and perform worse in the multiple-choice exam when giving an...

We propose an experimental design allowing a behavioral test of the axiom ofcompleteness of individual preferences. The central feature of our design consistsin enabling subjects to postpone commitment at a small cost. Our main result isthat preferences are significantly incomplete. We use...

Completeness, the most commonly assumed axiom in preference theory,has not received much attention from the experimental literature. Indeed,incomplete preferences model a cognitive phenomenon (an agent's inabilityto compare alternatives), and therefore cannot be directly revealed throughchoice...

The embedding effect has frequently been observed in willingness to pay (WTP) studies.Since policy implications of valuation studies can be very sensitive to the composition of thepackage being valued, respondents’ apparent insensitivity to such fundamental characteristicssuggests that it is...

While in less developed and in transition economies microlending has become an efficient instrument for providing small and micro businesses with the necessary financial means, in industrialized countries, with highly developed banking systems, the existence and size of an uncovered demand for...