Many economic decisions involve a substantial amount of uncertainty, and therefore crucially depend on how individuals process probabilistic information. In this paper, we investigate the capability for probability judgment in a representative sample of the German population. Our results show...

Many economic decisions involve a substantial amount of uncertainty, and therefore crucially depend on how individuals process probabilistic information. In this paper, we investigate the capability for probability judgment in a representative sample of the German population. Our results show...

Whether, and if so, how exactly gender differences are manifested in moral judgment has recently been at the center of much research on moral decision making. Previous research suggests that women are more deontological than men in personal, but not impersonal, moral dilemmas. However, typical...

We consider a test of expressive voting developed by Brennan and Lomasky (1993). They point out that in presidential elections the probability of a tie, and casting a decisive vote, increases “multi-billionfold” as the election becomes increasingly close. They conjecture that if voters are...

Human behavior is not always consistent with standard rational choice predictions. The much-investigated variety of apparent deviations from rational choice predictions provides a promising arena for the merger of economics and biology. Although little is known about the extent to which other...

We investigate consumers’ preference for scarcity in a real market with large stakes. We find evidence that the elasticity of demand for scarcity is constant across prices ranging from $50 to nearly $4 million, that preference for scarcity follows a power law, and that it explains 95% of the...

The endowment effect is the seemingly irrationally tendency to immediately value a possessed item more than the opportunity to acquire the identical item when one does not already possess it. The phenomenon has broad legal implications, as it suggests a drag on trade, occasioned by inconsistent...

The endowment effect is the seemingly irrationally tendency to immediately value a possessed item more than the opportunity to acquire the identical item when one does not already possess it. The phenomenon has broad legal implications, as it suggests a drag on trade, occasioned by inconsistent...

This paper examines the role of simplified heuristics in the formation of preferences for public goods. Political scientists have suggested that voters use simplified heuristics based on the positions of familiar parties to infer how a proposed policy will affect them and to cast a vote in line...

Are preferences for reforms driven by individuals’ own endowments or beliefs? To address this question, we conducted a cross-country survey on people’s opinions on employment protection legislation—an area where reform has proven to be difficult and personal interests are at stake. We find...