For most decisions, we rely on information encountered over the course of days, months or years. We consume this information in various forms, including abstract summaries of multiple data points - statistics - and contextualized anecdotes about individual instances - stories. This paper...

When people exchange ideas, both truths and falsehoods can proliferate. We study the role of explanations for the spread of truths and falsehoods in 15 financial decision tasks. We pay participants to record the reasoning behind each of their answers, providing over 6,900 unique verbal...

For many decisions, people rely on information received from others by word of mouth. How does the process of verbal transmission distort economic information? In our experiments, participants listen to audio recordings containing economic forecasts and are paid to accurately transmit the...

In this note, we provide evidence that motivated reasoning can be a source of discriminatory beliefs. We employ a representative survey experiment where we exogenously manipulate the presence of a need for justification of anti-social behavior towards an out-group. We provide causal evidence...

In this article, we review the economics literature on the motivated recall of information. Summarizing both theoretical and empirical work, we highlight key results this literature has produced. We also discuss methodological issues when studying motivated memory. We conclude by highlighting...

We investigate financial experts' beliefs about climate risk pricing and analyze how those beliefs influence stock return expectations. In a comprehensive survey, we elicit experts' beliefs using both structured and open-ended questions. We establish that most experts share the view that climate...

We survey the recent literature in economics measuring what is on top of people's minds using open-ended questions. We first provide an overview of studies in political economy, macroeconomics, finance, labor economics, and behavioral economics that have employed such measurement. We next...

We provide evidence on the stories that people tell to explain a historically notable rise in inflation using samples of experts, U.S. households, and managers. We document substantial heterogeneity in narratives about the drivers of higher inflation rates. Experts put more emphasis on...

We leverage the small open economy Switzerland as a testing ground for basic premises of macroeconomic models of endogenous information acquisition, using tailored surveys of firms and households. First, we show that firms perceive a greater exposure to exchange rate movements than households,...

We conduct a natural field experiment with a major European party to test whether giving party supporters the opportunity to voice their opinions increases their engagement in the party's electoral campaign. In our experiment, the party asked a random subset of supporters for their opinions on...