Conventionally, information acquisition is motivated by its instrumental value – the value derived from adapting action to new knowledge. In this paper, we explore the notion of reassurance, whereby people seek to acquire information in order to remove lingering doubts or fears. We formulate...

We present a new behavioral foundation for regret theory. The central axiom of this foundation — trade-off consistency — renders regret theory observable at the individual level and makes our foundation consistent with the existing measurement method. For the first time, our behavioral...

We characterize and empirically measure the interaction between risk and time preferences in an experiment. Our results indicate that risk and time preferences are intertwined. We find that decision makers are insensitive to time delay for small probabilities of gains, but become progressively...

We examine risk attitudes under regret theory and derive analytical expressions for two components - the resolution and regret premiums - of the risk premium under regret theory. We posit that regret-averse decision makers are risk seeking (resp., risk averse) for low (resp., high) probabilities...

Detecting gender discrimination among children in the intra-household allocation of goods from household surveys has often proven to be difficult. This paper uses some of the commonly used techniques in this field to analyze education expenditures in India. Contrary to most previous research, I...

Indian girls have significantly lower school enrollment rates than boys. Anecdotal evidence suggests that gender-differential treatment is the main explanation, but empirical support is often weak. I analyze school enrollment using rainfall shocks, a plausibly exogenous source of income...

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in using public-works programs as anti-poverty measures in developing countries. This paper analyzes the rural labor market impacts of the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, one of the most ambitious programs of its kind, by using a...