Amidst a sharp increase in household debt levels, many countries have substantially reformedtheir consumer bankruptcy regulations. I first classify the mechanisms triggered by current U.S.and European bankruptcy regulations and then evaluate these mechanisms within a hidden actionmodel. I...

In the light of increasing household debt, several countries are substantiallyreforming their consumer bankruptcy regulations. This paperfirst classifies the mechanisms triggered by both U.S. and European bankruptcyregulations. Then, I test these mechanisms within a hidden actionmodel. Here, I...

We experimentally analyze consoumers' reaction to insurance default risk. Consistent with eralier studies, we find that insurance with default risk is extremely unattractive to most individuals. A considerable fraction of consumers completely refuse to accept any default risk; others ask for...

Am Abend des 30. Oktober 1938 löste eine Radiosendung in den USA eine Massenhysterie aus (vgl. Wells 1974: 342). Das Hörspiel Krieg der Welten wurde von ca. sechs Millionen Menschen verfolgt, zwei Millionen von ihnen glaubten, die Sendung basiere auf aktuellen Geschehnissen. Die darauf...

The trend towards Internet self-regulation is driven both by gov-ernments that feel reluctant to invest in direct regulation (because offreedom of speech concerns or high cots of monitoring and enforce-ment) and by the industry that is under the threat of rising publicconcerns over content...

In this article we provide a seminal academic investigation of mo-bile telephony consumers' perception of the recently introduced costcap tari in comparison to corresponding pay-per-use and atrate call-ing plans. Previous studies have identied several psychological eectsthrough which consumers...

Parimutuel betting markets are simplified financial markets, andcan thus provide a clearer view of pricing issues which are more complicatedelsewhere. Though empirical studies generally conclude thatthe parimutuel betting markets are surprisingly efficient, it is alsofound that for horses with...

In this paper we relate individual risk attitude as elicited by binary lotteriesand certainty equivalents to market behavior. By analyzing 26 independentmarkets with a total of 280 participants we show that binary lottery choicesand certainty equivalents are poorly correlated. Only lottery...

In this paper we study information revelation on asset markets with endogenousand exogenous information. Our results indicate that superior informationcan only be exploited in the beginning of trading. Information disseminateson the market and informational advantages are counter-balancedover...

Extreme adverse selection arises when private information has unboundedsupport, and market breakdown occurs when no trade is the only equilibriumoutcome. We study extreme adverse selection via the limit behavior of afinancial market as the support of private information converges to an...