Multiplicative growth processes that are subject to random shocks often have a skewed distribution of outcomes. In a number of incentivized laboratory experiments we show that a large majority of participants either strongly underestimate skewness or ignore it completely. Participants...

To overcome the problem of insufficient research and development (R&D) on vaccines for diseases concentrated in low-income countries, sponsors could commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they are developed. One or more sponsors would commit to a minimum price that would be paid per...

Die meisten ökonomischen Handlungen sind zukunftsgewandt und antizipieren künftige Entwicklungen. Aus diesem Grund beachten Wissenschaft und Politik mit großem Interesse die Erwartungen der handelnden Personen auf Angebots- und Nachfrageseite der Märkte. Sind diese Erwartungen optimistisch,...

We measure the quality of applications for online peer-to-peer lending in Germany and relate it to gender discrimination. The data context allows summarizing application quality as a single numeric measure, the expected internal rate of return. The measure serves as a control variable and is...

We repeatedly elicit beliefs about the returns to study effort in a panel survey of students of a large university course. A behavioral model of quasi-hyperbolic discounting and malleable beliefs yields the prediction that the dynamics of return beliefs mirrors the importance of exerting...

Wir führen hochfrequente Befragungen der in Deutschland lebenden Personen durch und erheben die Erwartungen zur Dauer der Covid-bedingten Beschränkungen des öffentlichen Lebens. In einer ersten Analyse der Daten finden wir Hinweise, dass zwei in den Erhebungszeitraum fallenden öffentlichen...

The rational expectations assumption, e.g. in life-cycle models and portfolio-choice models, prescribes agents to have model-consistent beliefs and to avoid systematic prediction errors. In reality, justi cation and identification of expectations are nontrivial. One way to solve this problem is...