We conducted a randomized controlled trial testing the effect of modest incentives to attend the gym among new members of a fitness facility, a population that is already engaged in trying to change a health behavior. Our experiment randomized 836 new members of a private gym into a control...

Reducing Africa's dependence on Asian rice imports requires tailoring local rice products to food markets that are segmented by cultural heritage of ancient rice domestication and colonial heritage of more recent import substitution policies. Using experimental auctions, we examine quality...

This paper analyzes a boundedly rational decision maker who is uncertain about his preference and faces the following trade-off: adding a good to the choice set has a positive option value but increases the complexity of the choice problem. The increased complexity is modeled as a reduction of...

In this paper we analyze a consumer choice model with price uncertainty, loss aversion, and expectation-based reference points. The implications of this model are tested in an experiment in which participants have to make a consumption choice between two sandwiches. We make use of the fact that...

An agent wants to derive her belief over outcomes based on past observations collected in her database (memory). There is well establish evidence in the psychology and marketing literature that agents consistently fail (or choose not) to process all available information. An agent might be...

Why do we love stories? That this is not an idle question is shown by the fact that we spend an enormous amount of time in our lives following stories: telling and listening to them; reading them; watching them on television or in films or on stage. Despite their recurrent similarity and even...

Strong growth in disposable income has inflated consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. In this process consumer behavior has been changing. To explain the driving forces of this development, the paper introduces a theory of evolving consumer preferences that is molded in an...

We reformulate neoclassical consumer choice by focusing on γ, the marginal utility of money. As the opportunity cost of current expenditure, γ is approximated by the slope of the indirect utility function of the continuation. We argue that γ can largely supplant the role of an arbitrary...

How can economic theory explain the reasons why consumers adopt innovations? Using the example of innovations in washing machines two approaches are compared. The first focuses in the manner of household production theory on changes in constraints without specifying preferences, leading to the...

Strong growth in disposable income has driven, and is still driving, consumption to unprecedented, but not sustainable levels. To explain the dynamic interplay of needs, need satisfaction, and innovation underlying that growth a behavioral theory of consumption is suggested and discussed with...