The neurotransmitter dopamine has been found to play a crucial role in choice, learning, and belief formation. The best-developed current theory of dopaminergic function is the "reward prediction error" hypothesis-that dopamine encodes the difference between the experienced and predicted...

We develop a revealed preference test for optimal acquisition of costly information. The test encompasses models of rational inattention, sequential signal processing, and search. We provide limits on the extent to which attention costs can be recovered from choice data. We experimentally elicit...

With complete information, choice of one option over another conveys preference. Yet when search is incomplete, this is not necessarily the case. It may instead reflect unawareness that a superior alternative was available. To separate these phenomena, we consider non-standard data on the...

The neurotransmitter dopamine is central to the emerging discipline of neuroeconomics; it is hypothesized to encode the difference between expected and realized rewards and thereby to mediate belief formation and choice. We develop the first formal tests of this theory of dopaminergic function,...

Subsidized primary care and community health worker (CHW) visits are important demand side policies in the effort to achieve universal health care for children under five. Causal evidence on the effects of these policies, alone and in interaction, is still sparse. This paper reports the effects...

We study how healthcare subsidies and improved information affect over- and under-use of primary healthcare in a randomized control trial of 1544 children in Mali. In a dynamic model of healthcare demand, misuse relative to policymaker preferences (here given by WHO care-seeking standards)...

We study the impact of subsidies (which remove cost barriers) and healthworker visits (which remove informational barriers) on over- and underuse of primary care, using a randomized control trial across 1532 children in Mali. Providing children with access to primary healthcare is an important...

Two of the most well known regularities observed in preferences under risk and uncertainty are ambiguity aversion and the Allais paradox. We study the behavior of an agent who can display both tendencies simultaneously. We introduce a novel notion of preference for hedging that applies to both...