Showing 1 - 10 of 31
Behavioral economics is changing our understanding of how economic policy operates, including tax policy. In this paper, we consider some implications of behavioral economics for tax policy, such as how it changes our understanding of the welfare consequences of taxation, the relative...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005027102
This paper develops a model of health insurance that incorporates behavioral biases. In the traditional model, people who are insured overuse low value medical care because of moral hazard. There is ample evidence, though, of a different inefficiency: people underuse high value medical care...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010951362
Existing learning models attribute failures to learn to a lack of data. We model a different barrier. Given the large number of dimensions one could focus on when using a technology, people may fail to learn because they failed to notice important features of the data they possess. We conduct a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010951463
We present a model of coarse thinking, in which individuals group situations into categories, and transfer the informational content of a given message from situations in a category where it is useful to those where it is not. The model explains how uninformative messages can be persuasive,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005084819
We propose an activity-generating theory of regulation. When courts make errors, tort litigation becomes unpredictable and as such imposes risk on firms, thereby discouraging entry, innovation, and other socially desirable activity. When social returns to innovation are higher than private...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005774766
In this paper, we provide a new framework for analyzing corruption in public bureaucracies. The standard way to model corruption is as an example of moral hazard, which then leads to a focus on better monitoring and stricter penalties with the eradication of corruption as the final goal. We...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011227914
We analyze optimal policy when consumers of energy-using durables undervalue energy costs relative to their private optima. First, there is an Internality Dividend from Externality Taxes: aside from reducing externalities, they also offset distortions from underinvestment in energy efficiency....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011227933
Do financial advisers undo or reinforce the behavioral biases and misconceptions of their clients? We use an audit methodology where trained auditors meet with financial advisers and present different types of portfolios. These portfolios reflect either biases that are in line with the financial...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011188552
We provide evidence that individuals optimize imperfectly when making annuity decisions, and this result is not driven by loss aversion. Life annuities are more attractive when presented in a consumption frame than in an investment frame. Highlighting the purchase price in the consumption frame...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010796749
Most Difference-in-Difference (DD) papers rely on many years of data and focus on serially correlated outcomes. Yet almost all these papers ignore the bias in the estimated standard errors that serial correlation introduce4s. This is especially troubling because the independent variable of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005089015