Microcredit is an innovative financial tool designed to reduce poverty and fix credit marketimperfections. We use experimental measures of time discounting and risk aversion forvillagers in south India to highlight behavioral features of microcredit. Conditional onborrowing from any source,...

Many policy makers and economists argue that financial literacy is key to financial well-being. But why do many individuals remain financially illiterate despite the apparent importance of being financially informed? This paper presents results of a field study linking individual decisions to...

This paper analyzes data from a novel field experiment designed to test the impact of twodifferent insurance products and a secret saving device on solidarity in risk-sharing groupsamong rural villagers in the Philippines. Risk is simulated by a lottery. Risk-sharing ispossible in solidarity...

This study validates a survey-based measure of general risk attitude by an incentivecompatible experiment among more than 900 participants in rural Thailand. The surveymeasure of self-assessed risk attitude provides a useful approximation of the experimentallyderived risk attitude. This holds...

This paper presents the results of a field study at a large financial services firm that combinesmultiple methods, including two economic experiments, to measure ethical norms and theirbehavioral correlates. Standard survey questions eliciting ethical evaluations of actions in on-thejobethical...

This paper presents a World Bank led and Russia trust fund financed work program tomeasure financial capability and the effectiveness of financial education in low and middleincome countries. The two activities and their staging have been motivated by the lessons ofhigh-income countries with...

This study investigates loss aversion when the reference point is state-dependent.Using a state-dependent structure, prospects are more attractive if they depend positively on the reference point and are less attractive in case of negative dependence. In addition, the structure is neutral in the...

We present a model for the α-beauty contest that explains common patterns in ex-perimental data of one-shot and iterative games. The approach is based on two basic assumptions. First, players iteratively update their recent guesses. Second, players estimate intervals rather than exact numbers...

This paper provides a comparison of tax morale between inhabitants of East and WestGermany in its post-reunification period, using three World Values Survey/European ValuesSurvey waves between 1990 and 1999. German reunification is particularly interesting for theanalysis of tax morale as it is...