Personal autonomy has been argued to be fundamental to well-being and is often discussed as an important driver of economic and political behavior. Yet, preferences for autonomy are not well understood, because their identification requires the separation of instrumental value attached to...

Imperfect information and inattention to energy costs are important potential justifications for energy efficiency standards and subsidies. We evaluate these policies in the lightbulb market using a theoretical model and two randomized experiments. We derive welfare effects as functions of...

Imperfect information and inattention to energy costs are important potential motivations for energy efficiency standards and subsidies. We evaluate these motivations in the lightbulb market using a theoretical model and two randomized experiments. We derive welfare effects as functions of...

Imperfect information and inattention to energy costs are important potential motivations for energy efficiency standards and subsidies. We evaluate these motivations in the lightbulb market using a theoretical model and two randomized experiments. We derive welfare effects as functions of...

This paper shows that accounting for variation in mistakes can be crucial for welfare analysis. Focusing on consumer underreaction to not-fully-salient sales taxes, we show theoretically that the efficiency costs of taxation are amplified by differences in underreaction across individuals and...

This paper develops and implements a series of tests of costly attention models, in the context of consumer misreaction to opaque prices. We derive a series of predictions about how the sign and magnitude of misreaction varies with stakes. We then test and confirm these predictions in an...