Previous research shows that firms shroud high add-on prices in competitive markets with naive consumers leading to inefficiency. We analyze the effects of regulatory intervention via educating naive consumers on equilibrium prices and welfare. Our model allows firms to shroud, unshroud, or...

This paper takes advantage of a natural experiment to examine the relationship between the price and saliency of health services. A large employer e-mailed individually-targeted health education encouraging high-value care to high-risk employees. Weeks before the program launched, a company...

This study investigates the effect of financial perception and behaviour on; (a) general accounts and services, (b) investment/savings and (c) insurance/assurance Using FinScope dataset from South Africa over the period 2003 to 2009,ordered probit, generalized ordered probit and pseudo panel...

Fungibility of money is a central principle in economics. It implies that any unit of money is substitutable for another and that the composition of income is irrelevant for consumption. We find in a field experiment that even in a simple, incentivized setup many subjects do not treat money as...

This paper provides field evidence on (a) how price framing affects consumers' decision to switch health insurance plans and (b) how the price elasticity of demand for health insurance can be influenced by policymakers through simple regulatory efforts. In 2009, in order to foster competition...

This paper develops a conceptual framework that can explain why economic development goes along with increases in body weight and obesity rates. We first introduce the concept of novelty consumption, which refers to an increase in food availability due to trade or innovation. Then we study how...

This paper proposes a novel approach to explore the relationship between cultural participation and subjective well-being. While most empirical research has considered such a connection using cultural and leisure activities individually or in additive terms, drawing from the sociological...