We explore experimentally a cognitive-effort channel through which defaults might influence behavior in an environment where the choice architect has misaligned incentives. Our experimental setting is an insurance market where the firm is better informed about the aggregate statistical risk...

To discuss experimental results without discussing how they came about makes sense when the results are robust to the way experiments are conducted. Experimental results, however, are – arguably more often than not – sensitive to numerous design and implementation characteristics such as the...

Adam Smith’s view of the proper role for government in commercial societies remains a source of debate. Here we sketch out in simple game-theoretic terms the numerous public-goods provision and externalities problems on display in particular in Book V of The Wealth of Nations. Casting these...

Conceptual lenses, or models (Allison 1969; Ortmann 2008), draw on stable ways of thinking about the world, or “reasoning routines”. We explore the deep structure of Adam Smith’s work, and to what extent it is the result of a set of “reasoning routines” that, at an early stage of his...

We propose a computational model to study (the evolution of) post-secondary education. Consumer who differ in quality shop around for desirable colleges or universities. Firm that differ in quality signal the availability of their services to desirable students. Colleges and universities, as...

Game theory is a branch of social sciences that formalizes decision-making in situations where two or more individuals or groups interact, possibly having conflicting interests. In Ortmann & Walraevens (2022) we have reconstructed Smith’s ways of thinking about the social world by analyzing...

Luckman et al. (2018) experimentally tested the conjecture that a single model of risky intertemporal choice can account for both risky and intertemporal choices, and under the conditions of their experiment, found evidence supporting it. Given the existing literature, that is a remarkable...

To discuss experimental results without discussing how they came about makes sense when the results are robust to the way experiments are conducted. Experimental results, however, are – arguably more often than not – sensitive to numerous design and implementation characteristics such as the...

Introduction -- Chapter 1: Schumpeter’s Assessment of Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations: Why He Got It Wrong -- Chapter 2: Adam Smith's Rhetorical Strategy in The Wealth of Nations, against the Commercial System of Great Britain -- Chapter 3: The Nature and Causes of Corporate Negligence,...