In a model of project design, evaluation, and selection, we explore how the incentives to improve the design of projects depend on the availability of funding and the process of evaluation. We show that project designers (researchers or NGOs) prefer to subject their projects to less-rigorous...

The increasing dependence of individuals on debt financing raises several welfare considerations that we analyze in this paper. We develop a dynamic, competitive model of relationship banking to determine how regulation influences borrowing and lending behavior, and analyze how it affects...

This paper uses a quasi natural experiment to explore how financial education changes savings, investment, and consumer behavior. We use data from a Junior Achievement Finance Park to measure the effect of a financial literacy program on students who are assigned fictitious life situations and...

Competition for positive attention in financial markets frequently resembles a tournament, where superior relative performance and greater visibility are rewarded with convex payoffs. We present a rational expectations model in which firms compete for such positive attention and show that higher...

How should an investor unwind a portfolio in the face of recurring and uncertain liquidity needs? We propose a model of portfolio liquidation in two periods to investigate this question, initially posed by Myron Scholes following the fall of Long Term Capital Management. We show that when the...

We develop a theoretical model to study the effects of libertarian paternalism on knowledge acquisition and social learning. Individuals in our model are permitted to appreciate and use the information content in the default options set by the government. We show that in some settings...

Psychologists study regret primarily by measuring subjects' attitudes in laboratory experiments. This does not shed light on how expected regret affects economic actions in market settings. To address this, we use proprietary data from a blackjack table in Las Vegas to analyze how expected...

Investor sophistication has lagged behind the growing complexity of retail financial markets. To explore this, we develop a dynamic model to study the interaction between obfuscation and investor sophistication. Taking into account different learning mechanisms within the investor population, we...

We describe how episodic illiquidity arises from a breakdown in cooperation between market participants. We first solve a one-period trading game in continuous-time, using an asset pricing equation that accounts for the price impact of trading. Then, in a multi-period framework, we describe an...

Consumer search is not only costly but also tiring. We characterize the intertemporal effects that search fatigue has on oligopoly prices, product proliferation, and the provision of consumer assistance (i.e., advice). These effects vary based on whether search is all-or-nothing or sequential in...