Considering that roughly 75 percent of new businesses fail within the first five years, it is difficult to account for entrepreneurs' irrationally overconfident behavior.One explanation is that overconfident entrepreneurs are less likely to imitate their peers and more likely to explore their...

Trust is vital for market development, but how can trust be enhanced in a marketplace? A common view is that more trusting may help to build trust, especially in less developed economies. In this paper, we argue that more trusting may lead to less trust. We set up a rational expectation model in...

We report results from a large randomized natural field experiment conducted in southwestern China in the context of insurance for sows. Our study sheds light on two important questions about microinsurance. First, how does access to formal insurance affect farmers' production decisions? Second,...