Aggregate productivity depends on whether productive inputs are allocated to their highest-value uses. We document a novel form of misallocation within a single individual performing a cognitively demanding task over time. In an online experiment, participants complete a 30-question mathematics exam with random question order and randomly timed enhanced incentives (“bonus boosts”). Performance falls by 9.5 percentage points from the first to the last question, and 82 percent of participants exhibit a decline. Yet 58.0 percent of participants report no preference over when to receive bonus boosts, and willingness to pay for these boosts does not differ significantly across timing options. This indifference is costly: assigning boosts early rather than late raises expected bonus earnings by 9 percent. The misallocation aligns with miscalibrated beliefs about productivity: pre-exam forecasts imply constant performance, and post-exam hindcasts capture only 55 percent of the actual decline. These findings identify miscalibrated beliefs about within-worker productivity trajectories as an under-recognized source of misallocation.

Common ratio and common consequence effects are two foundational deviations from expected utility (EU). Most non-EU models treat them as global preference features, yet there has been little experimental exploration of parameters. Moreover, the two effects are typically analyzed independently despite their natural link through mixture attitudes. We empirically characterize combinations of preferences across the parameter space, documenting new regularities that are inconsistent with leading non-EU models. Finding no prominent model that can explain these regularities, we propose a model of “upside potential” motivated by our results.

Opportunities, such as access to education or family background, shape income inequality by influencing the chances of economic success. Unequal opportunities create uncertainty about whether success is merit- or luck-based. We examine how uncertainty impacts preferences for redistribution, comparing it to more transparent forms of luck. Using a U.S.-representative sample, we elicit redistribution decisions in two environments: when workers' earnings are influenced by luck directly ("lucky outcomes") or indirectly ("lucky opportunities"). Spectators redistribute less and are less sensitive to differences in luck under opportunities. Inferential challenges drive this gap, which implies that individuals are less meritocratic than previous findings suggest.

Elites disproportionately influence policymaking, yet little is known about their fairness and efficiency preferences—key determinants of support for redistributive policies. We investigate these preferences in an incentivized lab experiment with future elites: Ivy League MBA students. We find that MBA students implement substantially more unequal earnings distributions than the average American, regardless of whether inequality stems from luck or merit. Their redistributive choices are also far more responsive to efficiency costs than the near-zero response found in representative U.S. samples. These patterns partly reflect distinct fairness ideals: a large share of MBA students falls outside standard classifications, instead displaying “weak meritocratic” tendencies that tolerate inequality even when it stems from luck. These findings identify a channel through which elite preferences may sustain U.S. inequality.

Many government program applications result in procedural denials due to administrative burdens associated with applying. We identify the intake interview as a key barrier to take-up of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and study the effect of an alternative application process designed to reduce burdens. Using a field experiment involving 65,000 Los Angeles applicants, we find that access to flexible interviews initiated by the applicant increases approvals by 6 percentage points, doubles early approvals, and increases long-term participation by over 2 percentage points. Our findings highlight the importance of incorporating flexibility when designing program integrity policies to minimize procedural denials.

We test for a novel pattern of menu-dependent risk attitudes that forms the basis of recent theories of risky choice: Does expanding the range of potential prizes from lotteries in a choice set lead people to overweight those prizes and make riskier choices? Contrary to our hypothesis, we find no evidence of such a menu effect. Varying the potential prize offered by an actuarially unfavorable, high-risk lottery does not affect the likelihood of choosing a different, moderate-risk gamble in favor of a safer alternative. Our well-powered null results cast doubt on prominent theories of menu-dependent risk preferences.

Using an experimental approach, we show that inflation expectations respond to gasoline price fluctuations. The effect, however, is small compared to other goods (food, durable goods) and not disproportionately large relative to the expenditure share of gasoline in households’ basket. The effect also weakens with the forecast horizons and displays substantial asymmetry: inflation expectations respond significantly more to positive than negative gasoline price shocks. A counterfactual exercise suggests that while the sharp rise in gasoline prices that followed the Russian invasion of Ukraine contributed substantially to short-term inflation expectations dynamics, the subsequent decline in gasoline prices did not.

Without strong assumptions about how noise manifests in choices, we can infer little from existing empirical observations of the common ratio effect (CRE) about whether there exists an underlying common ratio preference (CRP). We propose to solve this inferential challenge using paired valuations, which yield valid inference under common assumptions. Using this approach in an online experiment with 900 participants, we find no evidence of a systematic CRP. To reconcile our findings with existing evidence, we present the same participants with paired choice tasks and demonstrate how noise can generate a CRE even for individuals without an associated CRP.

This paper investigates whether the range of an attribute’s outcomes in the choice set alters its relative importance. I derive distinguishing predictions of two prominent theories of range-dependent attribute weighting: the focusing model of Kőszegi and Szeidl (2013) and the relative thinking model of Bushong, Rabin, and Schwartzstein (2021). I test these predictions in a laboratory experiment in which I vary the prices of high- and low-quality variants of multiple products. The data provide clear evidence of choice-set dependence consistent with relative thinking: price increases that expand the range of prices in the choice set lead to more purchases. Structural estimates imply economically meaningful effect sizes: the average participant was willing to pay around 17% more when a seemingly irrelevant option is added to their choice set.

Participants in means-tested programs must periodically document eligibility through a recertification process. If all cases that fail recertification are ineligible, the exact timing of this process should be irrelevant. We find that later recertification interview assignments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which leave less time to reschedule missed interviews, decrease recertification success by 22 percent. The consequences of not recertifying due to later interviews are highly skewed: most cases quickly re-enroll, while one quarter remain off SNAP for over a year. The marginal disenrolled case is as needy as the average participant, suggesting inefficient screening from late interviews.

We exploit a quasi-experiment created when New York State began in 2011 to tax cigarettes sold on Native American Reservations. The regime change represents a unique opportunity to quantify brand loyalty because it almost doubled the price of premium-brand cigarettes, while Native brands were still untaxed. We use data from two different sources—the New York State Adult Tobacco Survey and the Nielsen Homescan Panel. We find that the increase in relative prices led to substantial declines in premium cigarette purchases. However, even among the premium consumers with the most to gain from switching, about three-quarters remained brand loyal.

Previous research in multiple judgment domains has found that nonlinear functions are typically processed less accurately than linear ones. This empirical regularity has potential implications for consumer choice, given that nonlinear functions (e.g., diminishing returns) are commonplace. In two experimental studies we measured precision and bias in consumers’ ability to identify surpluses when returns to product attributes were nonlinear. We hypothesized that nonlinear functions would reduce precision and induce bias toward linearization of nonlinear relationships. Neither hypothesis was supported for monotonic nonlinearities. However, precision was greatly reduced for products with nonmonotonic attributes. Moreover, assessments of surplus were systematically and strongly biased, regardless of the shape of returns and despite feedback and incentives. The findings imply that consumers use a flexible but coarse mechanism to compare attributes against prices, with implications for the prevalence of costly mistakes.

Choice Blindness occurs when individuals fail to notice a mismatch between their stated preference and the outcome of their choice. While it is prevalent in areas of considerable economic importance, such as consumer choice for non-durables, pension decisions, and risk preferences, little is known about the underlying cause of this apparent cognitive blind spot. We examine whether the CB effect is robust when the stimuli is a product for which participants display a strong overall preference, specifically children’s preference for chocolate. First, we demonstrate that Choice Blindness for female faces is a general cognitive blind spot that is robust for a large sample of children aged 8–12. Second, we show that when the stimuli are chocolates, there is a substantial reduction in the incidence of Choice Blindness; only 10–20% of participants failed to notice the choice manipulation. Subjects who reported a greater affinity for chocolate were more likely to detect mismatches. However, we found that the strength of the relative preference ordering within the set of chocolates did not affect the incidence of Choice Blindness. Moreover, incentive compatibility did not increase detection rates; participants were just as likely to notice a mismatch regardless of whether or they actually received the chocolate they chose. We propose that this phenomenon can be viewed as an error resulting from the early stages preference development.

Choice Blindness is an experimental paradigm that examines the interplay between individuals’ preferences, decisions, and expectations by manipulating the relationship between intention and choice. This paper expands upon the existing Choice Blindness framework by investigating the presence of the effect in an economically significant decision context, specifically that of pension choice. In addition, it investigates a number of secondary factors hypothesized to modulate Choice Blindness, including reaction time, risk preference, and decision complexity, as well as analysing the verbal reports of non-detecting participants. The experiment was administered to 100 participants of mixed age and educational attainment. The principal finding was that no more than 37.2% of manipulated trials were detected over all conditions, a result consistent with previous Choice Blindness research. Analysis of secondary factors found that reaction time, financial sophistication and decision complexity were significant predictors of Choice Blindness detection, while content analysis of non-detecting participant responses found that 20% implied significant preference changes and 62% adhered to initial preferences. Implications of the Choice Blindness effect in the context of behavioural economics are discussed, and an agenda for further investigation of the paradigm in this context is outlined.

Understanding the nature of risk preferences is a central topic in economics, and researchers often gather data through experiments to motivate and assess models of risk preferences. This chapter provides a reference guide for aspiring researchers who want to investigate risk preferences using experiments. In particular, we provide guidance on bridging the gap between theoretical models of risk preferences and experimental designs that inform those models. We focus on theory-driven research in which the goal is to estimate the parameters of a model of risk preferences or to test some property of risk preferences. For each objective, we describe how to design an experiment and conduct the subsequent analysis while ensuring clean identification of the feature of risk preferences of interest and being to able to account for decision noise and heterogeneity. We also discuss some broader methodological and implementation issues.