The federal government provides generous tax subsidies for retirement saving in 401(k)s and IRAs. The subsidies are designed to increase household saving and retirement income security, important national goals. The estimated cost, however, exceeds $100 billion a year in lost revenue to the...

The debate about behavioral economics – the incorporation of insights from psychology into economics – is often framed as a question about the foundational assumptions of economic models. This paper presents a more pragmatic perspective on behavioral economics that focuses on its value for...

How can price elasticities be identified when agents face optimization frictions such as adjustment costs or inattention? I derive bounds on structural price elasticities that are a function of the observed effect of a price change on demand, the size of the price change, and the degree of...

It is well known that unemployment benefits raise unemployment durations. This result has traditionally been interpreted as a substitution effect caused by a distortion in the price of leisure relative to consumption, leading to moral hazard. This paper questions this interpretation by showing...

The individual income tax burden on dividends was lowered sharply in 2003 from a maximum rate of 35% to 15%, creating a unique opportunity to analyze the effects of dividend taxes on dividend payments by U.S. corporations. This paper uses data from the Center for Research in Security Prices...

Studies of risk preference have empirically established two regularities that are inconsistent with the canonical expected utility model: (1) risk aversion over small gambles greatly exceeds risk aversion over larger stakes and (2) insurance buyers play the lottery. This paper characterizes risk...

The debate between "structural" and "reduced-form" approaches has generated substantial controversy in applied economics. This article reviews a recent literature in public economics that combines the advantages of reduced-form strategies -- transparent and credible identification -- with an...

Studies of the consumption-smoothing benefits of unemployment insurance (UI) have found that the optimal benefit level is very small, perhaps even 0, for conventional levels of risk aversion. In this paper, I derive a formula for the optimal benefit rate in terms of income and price elasticities...

I show existing evidence on labor supply behavior places an upper bound on risk aversion in the expected utility model. I derive a formula for the coefficient of relative risk aversion (γ) in terms of the ratio of the income elasticity of labor supply to wage elasticity and degree of...

This paper shows that existing evidence on labor supply behavior places an upper bound on risk aversion in the expected utility model. I derive a formula for the coefficient of relative risk aversion (g) in terms of (1) the ratio of the income elasticity of labor supply to the wage elasticity...