Certain aspects of advertising–especially on television–are not easily explained with conventional economic models. In particular, much of the imagery and repetitive thematic content seen in advertisements seem “psychological” in nature, as opposed to “informative.” To understand the...

Reconciling Psychology with Economics: Obesity, Behavioral Biology, and Rational Overeating Abstract: The modern phenomenon of obesity is an archetypal example of a behavior whose explanation simultaneously falls within the purview of psychology, economics, and the biological sciences. While...

A broad and growing literature suggests that uncertainty with respect to income, employment, and/or the financial resources necessary to buy food may cause people to gain weight. The theory—inspired by theory and evidence from behavioral ecology—posits that economic insecurity triggers a...

It is often assumed (for analytical convenience, but also in accordance with common intuition) that consumer preferences are convex. In this paper, we consider circumstances under which such preferences are (or are not) optimal. In particular, we investigate a setting in which goods possess some...