This paper examines the influence of pre-experiment tasks on subject understanding. It used a 2x2 design varying the type of instructions and whether or not the pre-experiment quiz was incentivized. The Standard instructions were written closely replicate instructions used in prior economics...

Do experimental subjects have consistent first and higher-order beliefs about others? How does any inconsistency affect strategic decisions? We introduce a simple four-player sequential social dilemma where actions reveal first and higher-order beliefs. The unique sub-game perfect Nash...

We study the pattern of correlations across a large number of behavioral regularities, with the goal of creating an empirical basis for more comprehensive theories of decision-making. We elicit 21 behaviors using an incentivized survey on a representative sample (n = 1;000) of the U.S....

This paper investigates risk preference at older ages in 14 European countries. Older individuals report greater risk aversion. Using the longitudinal nature of the data we are able to show this relationship between risk preferences and age is not due to cohort effects or selective mortality. We...

Attitudes toward risk underlie virtually every important economic decision an individual makes. In this experimental study, I examine how introducing a time delay into the execution of an investment plan influences individuals' risk preferences. The field experiment proceeded in three stages: a...

We compile, generalize and extend the results about the comparative static effects of risk changes on optimal risk-reduction and saving behavior. We use the time-separable discounted expected-utility model and consider income risk, inflation risk, and interest rate risk. For each type of risk,...

As intuitive statisticians, human beings suffer from identifiable biases, cognitive and otherwise. Human beings can also be “noisy,” in the sense that their judgments show unwanted variability. As a result, public institutions, including those that consist of administrative prosecutors and...

Standard economic theory holds that beliefs about an alternative’s value are independent of the probability of it being in the choice set. Using data from two lab experiments (conducted in the US and India) and one field experiment (conducted in the US), I find consistent evidence that agents...

This paper offers a unified explanation of four prominent features of behavioral economics: reference dependence, loss aversion, concave utilities for gains, and convex utilities for losses. In this account, an agent chooses an alternative over the status quo only if each of the agent's...

To design and apply effective countermeasures to hacking and related threats, it helps to have some way to structure one’s educated guesses and inferences about hackers’ current activities and future moves. This is especially the case when the decision-maker must consider not only the risk...