The so-called unskilled-and-unaware problem was experimentally identified a decade ago: The unskilled are seemingly afflicted by a double curse because they also seem unaware of their (relative) lack of skills. Numerous authors have elaborated on this problem – experimentally as well as...

The unskilled-and-unaware problem describes a negative relationship between one’s skill level and self-assessment bias: the less skilled are, on average, more unaware of the absolute and relative quality of their performance. In this paper, we study whether, and to what extent, the...

We examine the effect of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of drug treatment on an important health habit, physical exercise. By learning the existence of a new drug treatment via DTCA, rational consumers may become careless about maintaining healthy lifestyles. Using the National Health...

This paper presents and tests a model of cigarette consumption which mixes two types of intertemporal dependencies : habit-formation and learning about the health conseqences of smoking. This latter is argued to result from the observation of health developments, both one's own and those of...