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This article proposes an approach to improving the psychological realism of economics while maintaining its conventional techniques and goals--formal theoretical and empirical analysis using tractable models, with a focus on prediction and estimation. Besides tolerating the imperfections that come with precision, models should aim for two crucial criteria: power and scope. The approach advocated is to develop portable extensions of existing models that embed preexisting theories as parameter values, while introducing the new psychological assumptions as alternative parameter values, and make the model portable by defining it in all cases where existing models make predictions.

An experiment by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) illustrates that people's tendency to evaluate risky decisions separately can lead them to choose combinations of choices that are first-order stochastically dominated by other available combinations. We investigate the generality of this effect both theoretically and experimentally. We show that for any decisionmaker who does not have constant-absolute-risk-averse preferences and who evaluates her decisions one by one, there exists a simple pair of independent binary decisions where the decisionmaker will make a dominated combination of choices. We also characterize, as a function of a person's preferences, the amount of money that she can lose due to a single mistake of this kind. The theory is accompanied by both a real-stakes laboratory experiment and a large-sample survey from the general U.S. population. Replicating Tversky and Kahneman's original experiment where decisionmakers with prototypical prospect-theory preferences will choose a dominated combination, we find that 28% of the participants do so. In the survey we ask the respondents about several hypothetical large-stakes choices, and find higher proportions of dominated choice combinations. A statistical model that estimates preferences from the survey results is best fit by assuming people have utility functions that are close to prospect-theory value functions and that about 83% of people bracket narrowly. None of these results varies strongly with the personal characteristics of participants. We also demonstrate directly that dominated choices are driven by narrow bracketing: when we eliminate the possibility of narrow bracketing by using a combined presentation of the decisions, the dominated choices are eliminated in the laboratory experiment and are greatly reduced in the survey. -- Lottery choice ; narrow framing ; representative-sample experiments

While present bias is an old idea, it only took hold in economics following David Laibson's (1994) dissertation. Over the past 20 years, research has led to a much better theoretical understanding of present bias, when and how to apply it, and which ancillary assumptions are appropriate in different contexts. Empirical analyses have demonstrated how present bias can improve our understanding of behavior in various economic field contexts. Nonetheless, there is still much to learn. In this paper, we give our assessment of some lessons learned, and to be learned.

A growing literature explores differences in subjective well-being across demographic groups, often relying on surveys with high nonresponse rates. By using the reported number of call attempts made to participants in the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers, we show that comparisons among easy-to-reach respondents differ from comparisons among hard-to-reach ones. Notably, easy-to-reach women are happier than easy-to-reach men, but hard-to-reach men are happier than hard-to-reach women, and conclusions of a survey could reverse with more attempted calls. Better alternatives to comparing group sample averages might include putting greater weight on hard-to-reach respondents or even extrapolating trends in responses. (JEL C83, I31)

We show that any decision maker who "narrowly brackets" (evaluates decisions separately) and does not have constant-absolute-risk-averse preferences will make a first-order stochastically dominated combined choice in some simple pair of independent binary decisions. We also characterize the preference-contingent monetary cost from this mistake. Empirically, in a real-stakes laboratory experiment that replicates Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) experiment, 28 percent of participants choose dominated combinations. In a representative survey eliciting hypothetical large-stakes choices, higher proportions do so. Violation rates vary little with personal characteristics. Average preferences are prospect-theoretic, with an estimated 89 percent of people bracketing narrowly. (JEL D12, D81)

We develop a rational dynamic model in which people are loss averse over changes in beliefs about present and future consumption. Because changes in wealth are news about future consumption, preferences over money are reference-dependent. If news resonates more when about imminent consumption than when about future consumption, a decision maker might (to generate pleasant surprises) overconsume early relative to the optimal committed plan, increase immediate consumption following surprise wealth increases, and delay decreasing consumption following surprise losses. Since higher wealth mitigates the effect of bad news, people exhibit an unambiguous first-order precautionary-savings motive. (JEL D14, D81, D83, D91)

We use Kőszegi and Rabin's (2006) model of reference-dependent utility, and an extension of it that applies to decisions with delayed consequences, to study preferences over monetary risk. Because our theory equates the reference point with recent probabilistic beliefs about outcomes, it predicts specific ways in which the environment influences attitudes toward modest-scale risk. It replicates "classical" prospect theory—including the prediction of distaste for insuring losses—when exposure to risk is a surprise, but implies first-order risk aversion when a risk, and the possibility of insuring it, are anticipated. A prior expectation to take on risk decreases aversion to both the anticipated and additional risk. For large-scale risk, the model allows for standard "consumption utility" to dominate reference-dependent "gain-loss utility," generating nearly identical risk aversion across situations. (JEL D81)

We examine self-control problems—modeled as time-inconsistent, present-biased preferences—in a model where a person must do an activity exactly once. We emphasize two distinctions: Do activities involve immediate costs or immediate rewards, and are people sophisticated or naive about future self-control problems? Naive people procrastinate immediate-cost activities and preproperate—do too soon—immediate-reward activities. Sophistication mitigates procrastination, but exacerbates preproperation. Moreover, with immediate costs, a small present bias can severely harm only naive people, whereas with immediate rewards it can severely harm only sophisticated people. Lessons for savings, addiction, and elsewhere are discussed. (JEL A12, B49, C70, D11, D60, D74, D91, E21)