This paper models the effect of a HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behavior and studies the welfare effects of testing for HIV. The model specifies a utility function that includes both regular consumption, and medical expenditures. Medical expenditures generate more utility if individuals are HIV...

This paper presents evidence that incorporating costly attention, modelled with rational inattention, might solves three well-established puzzles in the retirement literature. The first puzzle is that, given incentives, the extent of bunching of labour market exits at legislated state pension...

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how regulatory focus theory, a theory of motivation and self-regulation, can be drawn upon to explain a variety of consumer decision making phenomena. We briefly review the major tenets of the theory, which proposes a fundamental distinction between two...

On average, "young" people underestimate whereas "old" people overestimate their chances to survive into the future. We adopt a Bayesian learning model of ambiguous survival beliefs which replicates these patterns. The model is embedded within a non-expected utility model of life-cycle...

This article questions the rather pessimistic conclusions of Allen and Carroll (2001) about the ability of consumer to learn the optimal buffer-stock based consumption rule. To this aim, we develop an agent based model where alternative learning schemes can be compared in terms of the...

Borrowing decisions affect most households, with large stakes and implications for subfields as varied as macroeconomics and industrial organization. I review theoretical and empirical work on household debt: its prevalence, level, growth, and composition, as well as various measures of consumer...

We develop a parsimonious econometrics methodology to estimate individual's portfolio return process accounting for self-selection bias from portfolio adjustment; our approach is useful to assist investors learning own return process profile. We study three components to characterize investor's...

On average, "young" people underestimate whereas "old" people overestimate their chances to survive into the future. We adopt a Bayesian learning model of ambiguous survival beliefs which replicates these patterns. The model is embedded within a non-expected utility model of life-cycle...

This paper proposes a new approach for modeling investor fear after rare disasters. The key element is to take into account that investors' information about fundamentals driving rare downward jumps in the dividend process is not perfect. Bayesian learning implies that beliefs about the...

On average young people "undersave" whereas old people "oversave" with respect to the rational expectations model of life-cycle consumption and savings. According to numerous studies on subjective survival beliefs, young people also "underestimate" whereas old people "overestimate" their...