Personal experience matters. In a field setting with longitudinal data, we disentangle the effects of learning new information from the effects of personal experience. We demonstrate that experience with a fine, controlling for the effect of learning new information, significantly boosts future...

In the aftermath of many natural and man-made disasters, people often wonder why those affected were underprepared, especially when the disaster was the result of known or regularly occurring hazards (e.g., hurricanes). We study one contributing factor: prior near-miss experiences. Near misses...

Despite the central role of arbitrage in finance and economic theory, there is limited evidence of the factors that create and eliminate arbitrage opportunities, how often arbitrage occurs, and how profitable it is. We address these gaps via a transaction-level analysis of spatial arbitrage in...

We investigate whether the gender composition of teams affects their economic performance. We study a large business game, played in groups of three, in which each group takes the role of a general manager. There are two parallel competitions, one involving undergraduates and the other involving...

In diagnostic services, agents typically need to weigh the benefit of running an additional test and improving the accuracy of diagnosis against the cost of delaying the provision of services to others. Our paper analyzes how to dynamically manage this accuracy/congestion trade-off. To that end,...

This investigation draws upon concepts from prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky [Kahneman, D., A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: an analysis of decisions under risk. Econometrica 47 263--291.]) and multiattribute utility theory (Keeney and Raiffa [Keeney, R. L., H. Raiffa. 1976. Decisions...

A precise determination of a multiattribute utility function of a decision maker or a group of decision makers requires considerable information that may not be available in many decision situations. In this paper the method HOPIE, which allows one to determine a set of utility functions...

Given the difficulties people experience in making trade-offs, what are the consequences of using simple models that avoid trade-offs? We examine choices by such models in environments where "true" preferences are linear and attributes are characterized by binary attributes. A deterministic...

Numerous studies have shown that compensation demanded (CD) to give up a commodity often greatly exceeds willingness to pay (WTP) to obtain the same commodity, even in incentive compatible experiments that penalize strategic misrepresentation. Observed CD/WTP disparities are too large to be...

In this research we extend theoretical development about decision making in organizations in which many kinds of errors cannot be tolerated. Catastrophic consequences can be associated with faulty decision making in reliability-seeking organizations, a situation which does not occur in most...