Laboratory and field studies of time preference find that discount rates are much greater in the short-run than in the long-run. Hyperbolic discount functions capture this property. This paper solves the decision problem of a hyperbolic consumer who faces stochastic income and a borrowing...

Using a sample of Harvard undergraduates, the authors analyze the trust and social capital in two experiments. Trusting behavior and trustworthiness rise with social connectionl differences in race and nationality reduce the level of trusworthiness.

To identify the determinants of social capital formation, it is necessary to understand the social capital investment decision of individuals. Individual social capital should then be aggregated to measure the social capital of a community. This paper assembles the evidence that supports the...

If decision costs lead agents to update consumption every D periods, then econometricians will find an anomalously low correlation between equity returns and consumption growth (Lynch 1996). We analytically characterize the dynamic properties of an economy composed of consumers who have such...