Interest in behavioral economics has grown in recent years, stimulated largely by accumulating evidence that the standard model of consumer decision making provides an inadequate, positive description of human behavior. Behavioral models are increasingly finding their way into policy evaluation,...

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...

Economics

Economics

Economics

Defaults often have a large influence on consumer decisions. We identify anoverlooked but practical alternative to defaults: requiring individuals to make explicitchoices for themselves. We study such ?active decisions? in the context of401(k) saving. We find that compelling new hires to make...