This essay explores a fundamental modeling choice that must be addressed before an explanatory analytic narrative can be developed: whether to rely on a model fashioned around the specific event or political process under investigation using the procedure of "revealed preferences," or to "posit"...

This study explores the effectiveness of various methods for measuring risk tolerance, with the aim to better understand the risk-taking attitudes and behaviors of financial decision-makers. Using data collected between October 2020 and March 2021, the research investigates three key areas: (a)...

Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. We provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our theoretical...

We study how individuals in six Latin American countries value public versus private provision of education and healthcare using a survey experiment. Respondents were randomly assigned to vignettes that vary income, service quality, and provider type. Perceived quality is the main driver of...

Revealed preference theory (RPT) and its behavioral extension (BRPT) underpin an important strand of welfare economics. Their normative appeal rests on the claim that welfare can be inferred from observed behavior without substantive assumptions about what agents should value - a property I call...

The chocolate supply chain exemplifies the social and environmental challenges within global food systems. Growing awareness of environmental impact and ethical production practices is increasingly shaping consumer choices and influencing food policy. This highlights the need for an integrated...

Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs of...

We study how Americans trade off the welfare of the poor versus the rich using incentivized transfer experiments. Combining this with estimates of the Elasticity of Taxable Income, we quantify optimal income tax rates in the US. Revealed preferences show strong concern for the poor across the...

Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs of...

This paper deals with the data generation process implemented for an analysis of the impact of the 9-Euro ticket on mode choice. We discuss the assumptions made and procedures used to process a raw dataset that is based on GPS traces of individuals’ movements and on survey data into the...

We propose and axiomatize a new model of incomplete preferences under uncertainty, which we call hope-and-prepare preferences. An act is considered more desirable than another when, and only when, both an optimistic evaluation, computed as the welfare level attained in a best-case scenario, and...

This paper examines preferences for gender diversity among co-workers. Using stated-choice experiments with 5,400 PhD students and university students in Germany, we uncover a substantial willingness to pay (WTP) for gender diversity of up to 5% of earnings on average. Importantly, we find that...

Inspired by the controversial public and political debate in the European Union (EU) about legal initiatives to protect human rights and the environment along supply chains (e.g., the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, CSDDD), this paper examines individual preferences for...

This paper examines preferences for gender diversity among co-workers. Using stated-choice experiments with 5,400 PhD students and university students in Germany, we uncover a substantial willingness to pay (WTP) for gender diversity of up to 5% of earnings on average. Importantly, we find that...

We develop a nonparametric and ordinal approach for testing pure strategy Nash equilibrium play in games with monotone best responses, such as those with strategic complements/substitutes. The approach makes minimal assumptions on unobserved heterogeneity, requires no parametric assumptions on...

Welfare economics relies on access to agents' utility functions: we revisit classical questions in welfare economics, assuming access to data on agents' past choices instead of their utilities. Our main result considers the existence of utilities that render a given allocation Pareto optimal. We...