Traditional economic theories assume that individuals are endowed with certain risk preferences that are unaltered by experiences. However, recent evidence indicates that macroeconomic shocks do have an effect on an individual's willingness to take financial risks. In the context of investment...

We investigate whether the gender composition of a fund management team influences investment decision making behavior. Using an experimental economics approach, we examine the relationship between gender diversity and investment decisions. We find evidence that a male presence increases the...

This paper analyzes the role of mental health, specifically psychological distress, in self-employment decisions. We find evidence of a relationship between psychological distress and self-employment that depends on type of self-employment and severity of psychological distress. There is...

Despite the constant and frequent merger activity across various industries in the U.S. and throughout the world, limited evidence of the success of corporate mergers has been documented. The vast body of academic research demonstrates that most mergers add no value or reduce shareholder value...

An experiment was conducted to investigate the interaction between consumers’ past eating behaviors, risk perceptions and future information processing procedure. In the study, participants were required to choose whether or not to eat chicken that was potentially be tainted with Avian...

Using psychological terms such as cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias, this study reveals how individual consumers inadequately process (food safety) information, pay limited attention to signals, and make purchase decisions that are bias towards their initial choices. While it is...

A key goal of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010 is to ensure that children have access to healthy foods in schools. While the new policy mandates that healthy items must be included on the lunch line—and even that children must take certain foods—there is concern both over whether...

ABSTRACTLabels such as ‘Large’ or ‘Super‐size’ are often used to describe portion sizes. How do these normative labels influence consumer choice and how much they ultimately either consume or waste? Although one might believe that firms use normative labels to impact choice behavior...

Rational choice theory commonly assumes that the presence of unselected choices cannot impact which among the remaining choices is selected–-often referred to as “independence of irrelevant alternatives.†We show that such seemingly irrelevant alternatives influence choice in a...