We examine consumer certainty of future preferences and overconfidence in predicting future preferences. We explore how preference certainty and overconfidence impact the option value to revise today's decisions in the future. We design a laboratory experiment that creates a controlled choice...

While becoming a parent is transformational as one focuses more on the future, the time constraints are more binding right now. Using a unique data set that allows us to compare CO2 emissions from Swedish two-adult households with and without children, we find becoming a Swedish parent causes a...

We examine the causes and policy consequences of strategic (willful) ignorance of risk as an excuse to overengage in risky health behavior. In an experiment on Copenhagen adults, we allow subjects to choose whether to learn the calorie content of a meal before consuming it, and measure their...

We examine strategic self-ignorance—the use of ignorance as an excuse to over-indulge in pleasurable activities that may be harmful to one's future self. Our model shows that guilt aversion provides a behavioral rationale for present-biased agents to avoid information about negative future...

Are people strategically ignorant of the negative externalities their activities cause the environment? Herein we examine if people avoid costless information on those externalities and use ignorance as an excuse to reduce pro-environmental behavior. We develop a theoretical framework in which...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to measure welfare effects of taxes for correcting environmental externalities caused by domestic trade, focusing on exter- nalities that arise through exports. Externalities from exports come from a number of sources. Domestically owned ships,...

We show in a public goods experiment on three continents that conditional cooperation is a universal behavioral regularity. Yet, the number of conditional cooperators and the extent of conditional cooperation are much higher in the U.S.A. than anywhere else.

This paper analyses the effect on meal consumption away from home of a point-of-purchase healthy symbol. We base the analysis on a field experiment in a lunch restaurant. Our results suggest that meal consumption does not increase if the meal is labeled with a healthy symbol. Also, the mean...

Previous research shows that taste is one of the most important factors in determining food choices, and that food choices may be affected by "nudging". We analyze how taste, as determined by meal attributes, and nudging affects consumption of a healthy labeled meal. Our analysis is based on a...

Menu labeling of prepared meals away from home is a policy designed to help consumers make healthier food choices. In this paper, we use a field experiment to analyze if a restaurant benefits from introducing a healthy labeled meal on its menu by experiencing an overall increase in sales. We...