In this short note, we show investors one way to calculate ideal investment sizing by using two rules of thumb based on a simple outline of individual risk aversion. We illustrate these two heuristics, which are not widely appreciated, with thought experiments involving coin flips and ketchup &...

The epistemic conditions of rationality and mth‐order strong belief of rationality (RmSBR; Battigalli and Siniscalchi, 2002) formalize the idea that players engage in contextualized forward‐induction reasoning. This paper characterizes the behavior consistent with RmSBR across all type...

We use a model of impressionable voters to study multi-candidate elections under different electoral rules. Instead of maximizing expected utility, voters cast their ballots based on impressions. We show that, under each rule, there is a monotone relationship between voter preferences and vote...

We study experimentally how (un)selfish lies are reciprocated – or not – in subsequent economic interactions in the labor market. We find that while selfish lies are punished (negative reciprocity), prosocial and altruistic lies are neither punished nor rewarded (lack of positive...

Level-k models have recently gained popularity as a framework for strategic behavior with bounded rationality. These models make two assumptions: agents of a higher level have richer beliefs, and can also perform more computations. I develop a model that incorporates Level-k models into games of...

There is evidence that bidders fall prey to the winner's curse because they fail to extract information from hypothetical events - like winning an auction. This paper investigates experimentally whether bidders in a common value auction perform better when the requirements for this cognitive...

We study equilibrium reporting behavior in Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi (2013)-type cheating games when agents have a fixed cost of lying and image concerns not to be perceived as a liar. We show that equilibria naturally arise in which agents with low costs of lying randomize among a set of...

Agents in a network want to learn the state of the world from their own signals and their neighbors' reports. But they are cognitively-constrained: they have finite and heterogeneous cognitive abilities. We model cognitive ability as a measure of their sophistication when they reason on behalf...

Agents in a network want to learn the true state of the world from their own signals and their neighbors' reports. Agents know only their local networks, consisting of their neighbors and the links among them. Every agent is Bayesian with the (possibly misspecified) prior belief that her local...

We aim to test the hypothesis that overconfidence arises as a strategy to influence others in social interactions. We design an experiment in which participants are incentivised either to form accurate beliefs about their performance at a test, or to convince a group of other participants that...