This paper investigates one possible explanation for people’s conflicting attitudes regarding protection of private information. The proliferation of studies about crimes such as identity theft and cyber-stalking, together with the sharp increase in the number of victims, and the easiness with...

The initial years of transition in the Russian Federation have been characterised by relatively smaller falls in employment than in other reform-orientated countries of eastern Europe, despite the huge negative shock caused by the move from planned to market economy. Using information from two...

While Internet users claim to be concerned about online privacy, their behavior rarely reflects those concerns. In this paper we investigate whether the availability of comparison information about the privacy practices of online merchants affects users’ behavior. We conducted our study using...

A proper security architecture is an essential part of implementing robust and reliable networked applications. Security patterns have shown how reoccurring problems can be best solved with proven solutions. However, while they are critical for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and...

Recent research has demonstrated that choices between gambles are systematically influenced by the way they are expressed. Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory (1979) explains many of these "framing" effects as shifts in the point of reference from which prospects are evaluated. This paper...

Neuroeconomics uses knowledge about brain mechanisms to inform economic analysis, and roots economics in biology. It opens up the "black box" of the brain, much as organizational economics adds detail to the theory of the firm. Neuroscientists use many tools— including brain imaging, behavior...

Attention utility is the hedonic pleasure or pain derived purely from paying attention to information. Using data on brokerage account logins by individual investors, we show that individuals devote disproportionate attention to already-known positive information about the performance of...

Using transaction data from a sample of 1.8 million credit card accounts, we provide the first field test of a major prediction of Prelec and Loewenstein’s (1998) theory of mental accounting. The prediction is that consumers will pay off expenditure on transient forms of consumption more...