This paper proposes foundations and a methodology for survey-based tracking of well-being. First, we develop a theory in which utility depends on “fundamental aspects” of well-being, measurable with surveys. Second, drawing from psychologists, philosophers, and economists, we compile a...

Would people choose what they think would maximize their subjective well-being (SWB)? We present survey respondents with hypothetical scenarios and elicit both choice and predicted SWB rankings of two alternatives. While choice and predicted SWB rankings usually coincide in our data, we find...

The compromise effect arises when options near the "middle" of a choice set are more appealing. The compromise effect poses conceptual and practical problems for economic research: by influencing choices, it distorts revealed preferences, biasing researchers' inferences about deep (i.e., domain...

This paper describes results of a pair of incentivized experiments on biases in judgments about random samples. Consistent with the Law of Small Numbers (LSN), participants exaggerated the likelihood that short sequences and random subsets of coin flips would be balanced between heads and tails....

The compromise effect arises when options near the "middle" of a choice set are more appealing. The compromise effect poses conceptual and practical problems for economic research: by influencing choices, it distorts revealed preferences, biasing researchers' inferences about deep (i.e., domain...

Errors in probabilistic reasoning have been the focus of much psychology research and are among the original topics of modern behavioral economics. This chapter reviews theory and evidence on this topic, with the goal of facilitating more systematic study of belief biases and their integration...

Errors in probabilistic reasoning have been the focus of much psychology research and are among the original topics of modern behavioral economics. This chapter reviews theory and evidence on this topic, with the goal of facilitating more systematic study of belief biases and their integration...

Errors in probabilistic reasoning have been the focus of much psychology research and are among the original topics of modern behavioral economics. This chapter reviews theory and evidence on this topic, with the goal of facilitating more systematic study of belief biases and their integration...

Risk aversion is typically inferred from real or hypothetical choices over risky lotteries, but such “untutored” choices may reflect mistakes rather than preferences. We develop a procedure to disentangle preferences from mistakes: after eliciting untutored choices, we confront participants...