We conduct a proper test of the claim that people are overconfident, in the sense that they believe that they are better than others. The results of the experiment we present do not allow us to reject the hypotheses that the data has been generated by perfectly rational, unbiased, and...

We propose a model where voters experience an emotional cost when they observe a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for other people's welfare (altruism) in the process of making high profits. Even when there exist few truly altruistic firms, an equilibrium may emerge where all firms...

Many disasters are foreshadowed by insufficient preventative care. In this paper, we argue that there is a true problem of prevention, in that insufficient care is often the result of rational calculations on the part of agents. We identify three factors that lead to dubious efforts in care....

We prove that the English auction (with bidders that need not be ex ante identical and may have interdependent valuations) has an efficient ex post equilibrium. We establish this result for environments where it has not been previously obtained. We also prove two versions of the...

Numerous experiments demonstrate attitude polarization. For instance, Lord, Ross & Lepper presented subjects with the same mixed evidence on the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Both believers and skeptics of its deterrent effect became more convinced of their views; that is, the...