We study in the laboratory a series of first price sealed bid auctions of a common value good. Bidders face three types of information: private information, public information and common uncertainty. Auctions are characterized by the relative size of these three information elements. Only half...

This Paper studies a model where individuals have imperfect self-knowledge and learning is costly. It shows that the endogenous decision to collect information before taking an action creates a systematic and testable bias in the aggregate behaviour of agents in the economy. More precisely,...

We model the brain as a multi-agent organization. Based on recent neuroscience evidence, we assume that different systems of the brain have different time-horizons and different access to information. Introducing asymmetric information as a restriction on optimal choices generates endogenous...

This note argues that a rigorous application of simple game theory may provide unambiguous yet non-trivial theoretical insights about the behaviour of players in simple games. This contrasts with a commonly held view that many predictions in applied game theory are either obvious or...

We consider the decision of an agent with time inconsistent preferences to undertake an irreversible investment that yields an uncertain current benefit and a delayed cost. We show that, if the flow of information revealed between periods when the investment is postponed is sufficiently high,...

Based on recent neuroscience evidence, we model the brain as a dual-system organization subject to three conflicts: asymmetric information, temporal horizon, and incentive salience. Under the first and second conflicts, we show that the uninformed system imposes a positive link between...

We analyze the decision of individuals with time inconsistent preferences who undertake irreversible activities yielding either a current cost and a future benefit or a current benefit and a future cost. We first show that, when benefits come earlier than costs, the individual faces a...

We analyze the investment decision of a population of time inconsistent entrepreneurs who overweight current payoffs relative to future returns. We show that, in order to avoid inefficient procrastination, agents may find it optimal to keep optimistic priors about their chances of success and...