Managing financial matters is an important household task that is often left up to one partner. These decisions tend to be managed by men often based on factors unrelated to financial knowledge or skills. Many studies in sociology and, more recently, economics point to gender norms related to...

The Save More Tomorrow (SMarT) program of Thaler and Benartzi (2004) has been pointed to as an example of how insights from behavioral finance can be utilized to help households become better prepared for retirement. In this paper we model a representative household that discounts the future...

This study uses the 2009 National Financial Capability Study dataset to examine the factors associated with information search behavior by consumers when applying for a loan. The results indicate that financial literacy, perceived financial knowledge, educational attainment, and engaging the...

Most economic models assume that time preferences are stable over time, but the evidence on their long-term stability is lacking. We study whether and how time preferences change over the life cycle, exploiting representative long-term panel data. We provide new evidence that discount rates...

Most economic models assume that time preferences are stable over time, but the evidence on their long-term stability is lacking. We study whether and how time preferences change over the life cycle, exploiting representative long-term panel data. We provide new evidence that discount rates...

In a nationally-representative sample, we predict retirement savings using survey-based elicitations of exponential-growth bias (EGB) and present bias (PB). We find that EGB, the tendency to neglect compounding, and PB, the tendency to value the present over the future, are highly significant...

This paper examines the role of spousal trust in intra-household decision making through its potential of inciting the creation of information asymmetries in the presence of resource unobservability. We experimentally elicit spousal trust and trustworthiness by means of a binary trust game to...

We revisit optimal investment in energy-efficiency, presenting a decision framework built around the agent's wealth and wealth dynamic. An investment rule in the form of a trigger is derived such that the agent invests the first time the energy-carrier price crosses this threshold from below....

Normative analyses of household financial decisions typically assume parameters of the household utility function. Some general issues on parameter assumptions for normative analysis are discussed in this study. We review selected normative household analyses appearing in finance and economics...

This paper investigates how loss-aversion affects individuals' decisions on savings and insurance purchase. Specifically, this paper empirically tests if prospect theory's loss aversion decreases insurance demand and increases savings demand. Prospect theory predicts that boundedly rational...