We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the US over the period 1980-2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the "Reagan revolution" in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about economic opportunities and...

We study the logic of Peronist interventionist polices and the beliefs that support them. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron's speeches during the period 1943-55. Second, we study survey...

We conduct a proper test of the claim that people are overconfident, in the sense that they believe that they are better than others. The results of the experiment we present do not allow us to reject the hypotheses that the data has been generated by perfectly rational, unbiased, and...

We propose a model where voters experience an emotional cost when they observe a firm that has displayed insufficient concern for other people's welfare (altruism) in the process of making high profits. Even when there exist few truly altruistic firms, an equilibrium may emerge where all firms...

Many disasters are foreshadowed by insufficient preventative care. In this paper, we argue that there is a true problem of prevention, in that insufficient care is often the result of rational calculations on the part of agents. We identify three factors that lead to dubious efforts in care....

We conduct two experiements of the claim that people are overconfident. We develop new tests of overplacement which are based on a formal Bayesian model. Our two experiments, on easy quizzes, find overplacement. More precisely, we find apparently overconfident data that cannot be accounted for...

We observe that countries where belief in the "American dream" (i.e., effort pays) prevails also set harsher punishment for criminals. We know from previous work that beliefs are also correlated with several features of the economic system (taxation, social insurance, etc). Our objective is to...

Many studies have shown that people display an apparent overconfidence. In particular, it is common for a majority of people to describe themselves as better-than-average. The literature takes for granted that this better-than-average is problematic. We argue, however, that, even accepting these...

Numerous experiments have demonstrated the possibility of attitude polarization. For instance, Lord, Ross & Lepper (1979) partitioned subjects into two groups, according to whether or not they believed the death penalty had a deterrent effect, and presented them with a set of studies on the...

Many studies have shown that people display an apparent overconfidence. In particular, it is common for a majority of people to describe themselves as better-than-average. The literature takes for granted that this better-than-average effect is problematic. We argue, however, that, even...