We investigate the feasibility of inferring the choices people would make (if given the opportunity) based on their neural responses to the pertinent prospects when they are not engaged in actual decision making. The ability to make such inferences is of potential value when choice data are...

One of the central predictions of the life cycle hypothesis is that individuals smooth consumption over their economic life cycle; thus, they save when income is high, in order to provide for when income is likely to be low, such as after retirement. We test this prediction in a group of...

Although there is some evidence that Matthew Rabin existed before 1990, we had the pleasure of discovering him for ourselves when, in the early 1990s, he sent each of us a copy of his manuscript "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics" [2]. Matthew was, at this time, an assistant...

We ran three-round sequential bargaining experiments in which the perfect equilibrium offer was $1.25 and an equal split was $2.50. Subjects offered $2.11 to other subjects, $1.84 to "robot" players (who are known to play subgame perfectly), and $1.22 to robots after instruction in backward...

This essay is about what behavioral economics has established, what the new research frontiers are, and what can be said about welfare and consequently about policy.

The article considers the possibility that asset prices might deviate from intrinsic values based on market fundamentals. Three broad categories of theory are surveyed: (1) growing bubbles, (2) fads, and (3) information bubbles. "Sunspot" theories are also discussed. The paper covers both theory...