Behavioral economics identifies myriad deviations from classical economic assumptions about consumer decision-making, but lacks evidence on how its diverse phenomena fit together and whether they are amenable to modeling as low-dimensional constructs. We pursue such parsimony on three fronts,...

Behavioral economics lacks empirical evidence on some foundational empirical questions. We adapt standard elicitation methods to measure multiple behavioral factors per person in a representative U.S. sample, along with financial condition, cognitive skills, financial literacy, classical...

Behavioral economics lacks empirical evidence on some foundational empirical questions. We adapt standard elicitation methods to measure multiple behavioral factors per person in a representative U.S. sample, along with financial condition, cognitive skills, financial literacy, classical...

Behavioral economics lacks empirical evidence on some foundational questions. We adapt standard elicitation methods to measure multiple behavioral factors per person in a representative U.S. sample, along with financial condition, cognitive skills, financial literacy, classical preferences, and...

Can a behavioral sufficient statistic empirically capture cross-consumer variation in behavioral tendencies and help identify whether behavioral biases, taken together, are linked to material consumer welfare losses? Our answer is yes. We construct simple consumer-level behavioral sufficient...

Can a behavioral sufficient statistic empirically capture cross-consumer variation in behavioral tendencies and help identify whether behavioral biases, taken together, are linked to material consumer welfare losses? Our answer is yes. We construct simple consumer-level behavioral sufficient...

The one-third rise in the teen smoking rate in the 1990s has led to considerable interest in understanding the determinants of the youth smoking decision. We explore four aspects of this decision. First, we consider the demographic correlates of smoking participation, and find that smoking...

We document cross-individual variation in U.S. credit card borrowing costs (APRs) that is large enough to explain substantial differences in household saving rates. Borrower default risk and card characteristics explain roughly 40% of APRs. The remaining dispersion exists because a borrower can...

We document cross-individual variation in U.S. credit card borrowing costs (APRs) that is large enough to explain substantial differences in household saving rates. Borrower default risk and card characteristics explain roughly 40% of APRs. The remaining dispersion exists because a borrower can...

The intersection of research and policy on consumer credit often has a Goldilocks feel. Some researchers and policymakers posit that consumer credit markets produce too much credit. Other researchers and policymakers posit that markets produce too little credit. I review theories and evidence on...