We investigate how, in temporary economic hardship, agents change their consumption of health services, and how this depends on whether the service is universally free-of-charge visits to GP's or privately co-financed dental care. We find that own expenditures for dental care decrease. The...

This paper explores the role of marriage when markets are incomplete so that individuals cannot diversify their idiosyncratic labor income risk. Ceteris paribus, an individual would prefer to marry a hedge (i.e. a spouse whose income is negatively correlated with her own) as it raises her...

This article is the first formal investigation of consumer attitudes that compares the forecasting power of the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index. The authors find that measures available from the Conference Board have both...

Consumers choosing a cellular calling plan typically have many options to choose from. While the number of firms may be small, each offers a large number of calling plans, each one dealing with many options for each of the different types of services included in the contract (voice...

The behavioral implications of large discounts have been viewed from two opposing perspectives. From an attribution perspective, a large discount signals low quality and decreases the overall appeal of the product, but from a motivational account, a large discount seems attractive and increases...

We study whether and how parents interfere paternalistically in their children's intertemporal decision-making. Based on experiments with over 2,000 members of 610 families, we find that parents anticipate their children's present bias and aim to mitigate it. Using a novel method to measure...

Time-inconsistent, present-biased agents may hold commitment assets hoping to keep their current and future present bias in check. Paternalistic governments, in an effort to help such people, routinely offer commitment machinery such as restrictions (or bans) on early withdrawals from...

We study whether and how parents interfere paternalistically in their children's intertemporal decision-making. Based on experiments with over 2,000 members of 610 families, we find that parents anticipate their children's present bias and aim to mitigate it. Using a novel method to measure...

We study whether and how parents interfere paternalistically in their children’s intertemporal decision-making. Based on experiments with over 2,000 members of 610 families, we find that parents anticipate their children’s present bias and aim to mitigate it. Using a novel method to measure...

We study whether and how parents interfere paternalistically in their children's intertemporal decision-making. Based on experiments with over 2,000 members of 610 families, we find that parents anticipate their children's present bias and aim to mitigate it. Using a novel method to measure...