A theory of decision making is proposed that offers an axiomatic basis for the notion of satisficing postulated by Herbert Simon. The theory relaxes the standard assumption that the decision maker always fully perceives his preferences among the available alternatives, requiring instead that his...

Behavioral economics characterizes decision-makers using psychologically-informed models. Cognitive science produces psychologically-informed models. Why don't these disciplines talk more? Here, I present several arguments for why cognitive science should inform behavioral economics — it...

Behavioral economics characterizes decision-makers using psychologically-informed models. Cognitive science produces psychologically-informed models. Why don't these disciplines talk more? Here, the author presents several arguments for why cognitive science should inform behavioral economics -...

Behavioral economics aspires to replace the agents of neoclassical economics with living, breathing human beings. Here, the author argues that behavioral economics, like its neoclassical counterpart, often neglects the role of active sense-making that motivates and guides much human behavior....

This paper investigates whether risk aversion and impatience are correlated with cognitive ability. We conduct incentive compatible choice experiments measuring risk aversion, and impatience over an annual time horizon, for a representative sample of roughly 1,000 German adults. A measure of...

Using hypothetical lottery choices to measure risk preferences, Frederick (2005) finds that higher cognitive ability is associated with less risk aversion. This paper documents, however, that when using an incentive compatible measure of risk preference, attitudes towards risk are not associated...

We investigate to what extent genuine social preferences can explain observed other-regarding behavior. In a dictator game variant subjects can choose whether to learn about the consequences of their choice for the receiver. We find that a majority of subjects showing other-regarding behavior...

Single-sex classes within coeducational environments are likely to modify students' risk-taking attitudes in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment using first year college students who made choices over real-stakes lotteries at two distinct dates....

In this paper we utilise data from a unique new birth-cohort study to see how the risk preferences of young people are affected by cognitive skills and gender. We find that cognitive ability (measured by the percentile ranking for university entrance at age 18) has no effect on risk preferences...

Single-sex classes within coeducational environments are likely to modify students' risk-taking attitudes in economically important ways. To test this, we designed a controlled experiment using first year college students who made choices over real-stakes lotteries at two distinct dates....