We study how gradualism -- increasing required levels (""thresholds"") of contributions slowly over time rather than requiring a high level of contribution immediately -- affects individuals' decisions to contribute to a public project. Using a laboratory binary choice minimum-effort...

Experimental evidence suggest that people only use 1-3 iterations of strategic reasoning, and that some people systematically use less iterations than others. In this paper, we present a novel evolutionary foundation for these stylized facts. In our model, agents interact in finitely repeated...

Experimental evidence suggest that people only use 1-3 iterations of strategic reasoning, and that some people systematically use less iterations than others. In this paper, we present a novel evolutionary foundation for these stylized facts. In our model, agents interact in finitely repeated...

Under the assumption of perfect competition, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that abandoned properties and long undeveloped neighborhoods remain that way because they are unprofitable. In contrast, this paper introduces a model in which firms systematically overlook neighborhoods with...

Is it better to apply effort to increase personal consumption, or control what one wants? The model presented here provides a characterization of demand for self control, namely, its responsiveness to price and risk. Unlike most other models of self control, the model does not identify self...

Decisions about location choice provide an opportunity to compare the predictions of optimization models, which require exhaustive search through very large choice sets, against the actual decision processes used by entrepreneurs choosing where to allocate investment capital. This paper presents...

Behavioral economics has in recent decades emerged as a prominent set of methodological developments that have attracted considerable attention both within and outside the economics profession. The time is therefore auspicious to assess behavioral contributions to particular subfields of...

Behavioral/experimental economics is poised to enter a new phase in its relatively brief intellectual history, moving beyond empirical tests of standard behavioral assumptions in the social sciences to the problem of designing improved institutions that are tuned to fit real-world behavior. For...

Merrifield (2009) provides a useful polemic about the sad state of data analysis too frequently encountered in the school choice literature. The available data come mostly from limited policy experiments with only modest amounts of choice and competition. These data are then misapplied in...

Dynamic correlation models demonstrate that the relationship between interest rates and housing prices is non-constant. Estimates reveal statistically significant time fluctuations in correlations between housing price indexes and Treasury bonds, the S&P 500 Index, and stock prices of...