Evidence from hypothetical scenarios strongly suggests the existence of a sunk cost bias, the tendency to ‘throw good money after bad money.’ However, the few studies using incentives are inconclusive. In addition, evidence on potential psychological channels underlying such a bias is...

A growing literature shows how insights from behavioral economics can be successfully adopted in simple interventions through SMS or other types of low-cost communications. In this short, note we provide concrete basic guidelines to design behaviorally informed messages, based on theory and our...

We study a model of task completion with the opportunity to learn about own self-control problems over time. While the agent is initially uncertain about her future self-control, in each period she can choose to learn about it by paying a non-negative learning cost and spending one period. If...

Is being informed about nudging detrimental to the effect of the nudge? This paper reports results from an experimental study (n = 623) testing the effects of transparency on the effectiveness of a default nudge while controlling for reactance and decision time. Overall, the data show that more...

Intuitive decision making is a topic that has generated contrasting views due to the perceived trade-off between casting speedily AND accurate judgments. While cognitive psychologists have provided evidence suggesting that human intuition might lead to erroneous decisions, fast and frugal...

Traditionally, economic models have attributed procrastination to present bias. However, procrastination may also arise when individuals derive anticipatory utility from holding motivated, overly optimistic beliefs about the workload they need to complete. This study provides a rigorous...

We build a model of online behavioral manipulation driven by AI advances. A platform dynamically offers one of n products to a user who slowly learns product quality. User learning depends on a product's "glossiness,' which captures attributes that make products appear more attractive than they...

Procrastination is often attributed to time-inconsistent preferences but may also arise when individuals derive anticipatory utility from holding optimistic beliefs about their future effort costs. This study provides a rigorous empirical test for this notion of ‘motivated procrastination’....

Dual systems theories play an important role in the conceptual foundations of behavioural economics, such as distinguishing between ‘fast' and ‘slow' responses to stimuli. After considering how behavioural economists use these dualities to legitimize policy interventions, I critically...

This paper argues that there are two rival meanings of the concept of ecological rationality, which are often believed to be closely related if not similar. The first type is ecological rationality (ER1) as used in the work of Gerd Gigerenzer, which refers to the use of cognitive strategies,...