The sophistication of financial decisions varies with age: middle-aged adults borrow at lower interest rates and pay fewer fees compared to both younger and older adults. We document this pattern in ten financial markets. The measured effects cannot be explained by observed risk characteristics....

We measure learning and forgetting dynamics using a panel with four million monthly credit card statements. Through negative feedback -- i.e. paying a fee -- consumers learn to avoid future fees. Paying a fee last month reduces fee payment in the current month by 40%. Monthly fee payments fall...

In cross-sectional data sets from ten credit markets, we find that middle-aged adults borrow at lower interest rates and pay fewer fees relative to younger and older adults. Fee and interest payments are minimized around age 53. The measured effects are not explained by observed risk...

A host of recent studies show that attention allocation has important economic consequences. This paper reports the first empirical test of a cost-benefit model of the endogenous allocation of attention. The model assumes that economic agents have finite mental processing speeds and cannot...

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...

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...

Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many cases where this assumption...

Experimental subjects allocate $10,000 across four Samp;P 500 index funds. Subject rewards depend on the chosen portfolio's subsequent return. Because the investments are not actually intermediated by the fund companies, portfolio returns are unbundled from non-portfolio services. The optimal...

We document a flypaper effect in asset allocation: securities received in kind quot;stick where they hit.quot; We study a firm that twice changed the rules governing the securities in which its 401(k) matching contributions were initially invested. Both of these rule changes were economically...

An unexpected wealth windfall should increase consumption shortly after the windfall is received. We test this prediction using administrative records on over 40,000 401(k) accounts. Contrary to theory, we estimate a negative short-run marginal propensity to consume out of idiosyncratic 401(k)...