Abstract This study presents results of the validation of an ultra-short survey measure of patience included in the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Survey responses predict intertemporal choice behavior in incentive-compatible decisions in a representative sample of the German adult population.

We observe that identification of the discount rate from experimental data requires an assumption about the consumption period, the length of time over which a payment will be turned into utility-providing consumption. We show that the optimal consumption period is substantially longer than...

We test the implications of ambiguity aversion in a principal–agent problem with multiple agents. Models of ambiguity aversion suggest that, under ambiguity, comparative compensation schemes may become more attractive than independent wage contracts. We test this by presenting agents with a...

Three types of demand functions are central to contemporary consumer theory: the Marshallian, the Hicksian, and the Frischian demand functions. This paper presents a systematic definition of the analytical relationships amongst these demand functions under the maintained hypothesis that the...

The assumption that individual preferences are rational and consistent with standard economic theory is often appropriate, but may be optimistic if consumers are uncertain about either their preferences or how the market operates. Both sources of uncertainty may present themselves in lab...

We provide an alternative way to model sequential decision processes, which is consistent with the random utility maximization hypothesis and the existence of a representative agent. Our result is stated on terms of a direct utility representation, and it does not depend on parametric assumptions.

Resit exams–extra opportunities to do an exam in the same academic year–are widely prevalent in European higher education, but uncommon in the US. I present a simple theoretical model to compare rational student behavior in the case of only one exam opportunity versus the case of two exam...

Strong ties with the home country and with the host country can coexist. An altruistic migrant who sends remittances to his family back home assimilates more the more altruistic he is, and also more than a non-remitting migrant.

This paper studies the incentive to share information with competition. Information sharing has a positive aspect in that agents have better prediction. However, it also contains a negative aspect because it might increase the competition. We show that, when agents have independent information,...

Monetary incentives in online experiments are not always easy to implement. Yet online experiments are advantageous in terms of a natural decision-making environment, less stress on participants and a large number of the latter. Can we obtain plausible results from online experiments by using...