This paper argues that the relation between temptations and the level of consumption plays a key role in explaining the observed behaviors of the poor. Temptation goods are defined to be the set of goods that gen- erate positive utility for the self that consumes them, but not for any previous...

In this paper, a new framework for analyzing corruption in public bureaucracies is provided. 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. An...

There are many misconceptions on what behavioral economics is. This is essay clearly says what is behavioral economics. [CGD essay].

We develop and test a simple model of limited attention in intertemporal choice. The model posits that individuals fully attend to consumption in all periods but fail to attend to some future lumpy expenditure opportunities. This asymmetry generates some predictions that overlap with models of...

The paper examines individuals’ abilities to identify the highly central people in their social networks, where centrality is defined by diffusion centrality (Banerjee, Chandrasekhar, Duflo, and Jackson, 2013), which characterizes a node’s influence in spreading information. It...

This study uses micro data and an OLG model to show that general equi- librium forces are critical for understanding the relationship between aggregate fertility and household savings. [BREAD WP No. 415].

This paper studies the role played by caste, education and other social and economic attributes in arranged marriages among middle-class Indians. A unique data set on individuals who placed matrimonial advertisements in a major newspaper, the responses they received, how they ranked them, and...

Increased voter ethnicization, defined as a greater preference for the party representing one's ethnic group, affects politician quality. If politics is characterized by incomplete policy commitment, then ethnicization reduces average winner quality for the pro-majority party with the opposite...

The implications of alternative ways to model decisionmaking by families for educational policy are analysed. Many of the policy implications associated with credit constraints cannot be distinguished from the implications of models of the family that differ from the conventional Barro-Becker...

Household surveys from 13 developing countries are used to describe consumption choices, health and education investments, employment patterns and other features of the of the economic lives of the “middle classes†defined as those whose daily consumption per capita is between $2 and...