I propose an S-shaped utility function of consumption which, combined with an heterogeneous agents and external habit setting, fits well the first order moments of the American financial and macroeconomic time series relevant for the equity premium puzzle in the second half of XX century. The...

A disturbing feature of the conventional objective function for intertemporal decisions under uncertainty is that the agent's attitudes toward intertemporal substitution and risk aversion are entangled. This paper shows that, in contrast to common perception, the two attitudes can be completely...

We report the results of an experiment designed to study the determinants of asset price movement and consumption smoothing behavior across asset markets populated with varying proportion of traders with and without having induced motive to smooth consumption. Although the asset is over-priced...

We design an experiment to study the determinants of price movement and consumption smoothing behavior across asset markets populated with varying proportion of traders having induced motive to smooth consumption. The extent of over-pricing is higher when traders with no induced motive to trade...

Mandatory pension systems can have a negative impact on individual savings and labor supply decisions. In particular, defined benefit pension schemes that are not actuarially fair, can create incentives for early retirement, and therefore, reduce labor supply and the stock of human capital....

The left-right scale of political orientation plays a pivotal role in shaping individual behaviour and government policies, particularly in Western countries. Rational-choice theory suggests that individuals with lower (higher) incomes lean towards left-wing (right-wing) redistributive policies....

Many experimental studies report that economics students tend to act more selfishly than students of other disciplines, a finding that received widespread public and professional attention. Two main explanations that the existing literature offers for the differences found in the behavior...

We document gender differences in the price paid for work-related air travel among similar workers within a firm. We show that women pay consistently less per ticket than men, after accounting for a large set of covariates that include the characteristics of the trips, the employers, and the...

This paper investigates the impact of prolonged social distancing on generosity by analyzing the responses of 1255 US citizens to dictator games spread out over eight weeks of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the isolation and the negative effects on employment and household...

This study conducts both theoretical and empirical analyses of how the non-legally-binding policies originating from COVID-19 affect people's going-out behavior. The theoretical analysis assumes that under a declared state of emergency, the individual going out suffers psychological costs...