A growing body of evidence suggests that people exhibit large biases when processing information about themselves, but less is known about the underlying inference process. This paper studies belief updating patterns regarding academic ability in a large sample of students transitioning from...

A growing body of evidence suggests that people exhibit large biases when processing information about themselves, but less is known about the underlying inference process. This paper studies belief updating patterns regarding academic ability in a large sample of students transitioning from...

A growing body of evidence suggests that people exhibit large biases when processing information about themselves, but less is known about the underlying inference process. This paper studies belief updating patterns regarding academic ability in a large sample of students transitioning from...

We study the effect of communicating student-specific teacher expectations on academic performance. We randomize whether students (a) receive high-performance expectations, (b) are additionally paired with a classmate for encouragement, (c) receive information about past performance, or (d)...

Information frictions play an important role in many theories of expectation formation. We use a survey experiment to generate direct evidence on how people select, acquire and process information. Participants can buy different information signals that could help them forecast future national...

Science evolves in the long run. Law rules in the present. This potential temporal disconnect leads to a Hayekian “knowledge problem”, a challenge increasingly raised against behavioral law and economics: Empirical findings are deemed too uncertain to provide a solid basis for legal...

Shane Frederick's recent paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives reported some extremely surprising results - even allowing for everything we've learned about risk aversion and innumeracy. A survey that produced very different results raises further questions about (a) the exact role of...

Despite a robust college premium, college attendance rates in the United States have remained stagnant and exhibit a substantial socioeconomic gradient. We focus on information gaps — specifically, incomplete information about college benefits and costs — as a potential explanation for these...

Despite a robust college premium, college attendance rates in the US have remained stagnant and exhibit a substantial socioeconomic gradient. We focus on information gaps - specifically, incomplete information about college benefits and costs - as a potential explanation for these patterns. For...

Despite a robust college premium, college attendance rates in the United States have remained stagnant and exhibit a substantial socioeconomic gradient. We focus on information gaps - specifically, incomplete information about college benefits and costs - as a potential explanation for these...