In a symmetric repeated game with standard preferences, there are no gains from intertemporal trade. In fact, under a suitable normalization of utility, the payoff set in the repeated game is identical to that in the stage game. We show that this conclusion may no longer be true if preferences...

We consider a dynamic economy in which agents are initially unaware of some risks. As awareness of these risks emerges, markets re-open so agents can re-optimize and purchase insurance. An inefficiency may nonetheless arise as the cost of insurance is not spread over time. This "savings mistake"...

Recursive preferences have found widespread application in representative-agent asset-pricing models and general equilibrium. A majority of these applications exploit two decision-theoretic properties not shared by the standard model of intertemporal choice: (i) agents care about the...

The paper provides a representation theorem for the class of all stationary preferences in a stochastic environment. A notion of ambiguity aversion applicable to such preferences is also proposed. The analysis helps discriminate between dynamic models of ambiguity aversion and expected utility...

The rate of time preference is traditionally defined as the marginal rate of substitution between current and future consumption. This definition is not applicable when outcomes are indivisible. Such is the case in all discrete-choice dynamic problems which arise, for example, in modeling...

A major theme in behavioral economics focuses on experimental evidence that individuals learn from the choice problems they face and consequently violate the consistency requirements of revealed preference theory. Despite the experimental evidence, the testable implications of such contextual...

The paper studies infinitely repeated games in which the players' rates of time preference may evolve over time, depending on what transpires in the game. A key result is that in any first best equilibrium of the repeated prisoners' dilemma, the players must eventually cooperate. If we assume...

The paper proposes a choice-theoretic de nition of an unforeseen event and a model of behavior that accommodates such events. The analysis presumes an individual who is aware of their unawareness, which explains why all un- foreseen events in this paper are non-null. Relative to existing work,...