We present a theory of choice among lotteries in which the decision maker's attention is drawn to (precisely defined) salient payoffs. This leads the decision maker to a context-dependent representation of lotteries in which true probabilities are replaced by decision weights distorted in favor...

We present a standard model of financial innovation, in which intermediaries engineer securities with cash flows that investors seek, but modify two assumptions. First, investors (and possibly intermediaries) neglect certain unlikely risks. Second, investors demand securities with safe cash...

We present a theory of context-dependent choice in which a consumer?s attention is drawn to salient attributes of goods, such as quality or price. An attribute is salient for a good when it stands out among the good?s attributes relative to that attribute?s average level in the choice set ðor,...

We investigate the determinants of regional development using a newly constructed database of 1569 sub-national regions from 110 countries covering 74 percent of the world?s surface and 96 percent of its GDP. We combine the cross-regional analysis of geographic, institutional, cultural, and...

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- Introduction -- CHAPTER 1 The Financial Crisis of 2008 -- CHAPTER 2 What Were They Thinking? -- CHAPTER 3 A Neglected Risk Model of the Financial Crisis -- CHAPTER 4 Extrapolation in Financial Markets -- CHAPTER 5 Representativeness and Diagnostic...