Browsing by Author "Laibson, David"

Now showing items 1-20 of 75

    • $100 Bills on the Sidewalk: Violations of No-Arbitrage in 401(k) Accounts 

      Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (MIT Press, 2011)
      We identify employees at seven companies whose 401(k) investment choices are dominated because they are contributing less than the employer matching contribution threshold despite being vested in their match and being able ...

    • The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life-Cycle with Implications for Regulation 

      Agarwal, Sumit; Driscoll, John C.; Gabaix, Xavier; Laibson, David I. (Brookings Institution Press, 2009)
      Many consumers make poor financial choices and older adults are particularly vulnerable to such errors. About half of the population between ages 80 and 89 either has dementia or a medical diagnosis of “cognitive impairment ...

    • The Allocation of Time in Decision-Making 

      Chabris, Christopher F; Laibson, David I.; Morris, Carrie L.; Schuldt, Jonathan P.; Taubinsky, Dmitry (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2009)
      We study the allocation of time across decision problems. If a decision-maker (1) has noisy estimates of value, (2) improves those estimates the longer he or she analyzes a choice problem, and (3) allocates time optimally, ...

    • Asset Bubbles and the Cost of Economic Fluctuations 

      Chauvin, Kyle; Laibson, David I.; Mollerstrom, Johanna Britta (Wiley, 2011)
      Lucas (1987, 2003) estimates that the cost of economic fluctuations is low; a social planner would pay no more than 0.1% of (permanent) consumption to eliminate all future business cycle fluctuations. The current paper ...

    • Association of cognition with temporal discounting in community based older persons 

      Boyle, Patricia A; Yu, Lei; Segawa, Eisuke; Wilson, Robert S; Buchman, Aron S; Laibson, David I.; Bennett, David A (BioMed Central, 2012)
      Background: The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that cognitive function is negatively associated with temporal discounting in old age. Methods Participants were 388 community-dwelling older persons ...

    • The Availability and Utilization of 401(k) Loans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2011)
      We document the loan provisions in 401(k) savings plans and how participants use 401(k) loans. Although only about 22% of savings plan participants who are allowed to borrow from their 401(k) have such a loan at any given ...

    • Behavioral and Experimental Insights on Consumer Decisions and the Environment 

      Shrum, Trisha Renee (2016-05-19)
      In the following essays, I apply theoretical insights and experimental methods from behavioral science to address three questions at the intersection of environmental economics and consumer behavior. In Chapter 1, I use ...

    • Behavioral Economics Perspective on Public Sector Pension Plans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
      We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few ...

    • Behavioral Economics Perspectives on Public Sector Pension Plans 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2011)
      We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few ...

    • Behavioral Household Finance 

      James J.Choi; Laibson, David; Brigitte C. Madrian; Beshears, John (Elsevier, 2018-09-27)

    • Capital Flows, Consumption Booms and Asset Bubbles: A Behavioural Alternative to the Savings Glut Hypothesis 

      Laibson, David I.; Mollerstrom, Johanna Britta (Royal Economic Society (Great Britain), 2010)
      Bernanke (2005) hypothesized that a “global savings glut” was causing large trade imbalances. However, we show that the global savings rates did not show a robust upward trend during the relevant period. Moreover, if there ...

    • Cognitive Function Is Associated with Risk Aversion in Community-Based Older Persons 

      Boyle, Patricia A.; Yu, Lei; Buchman, Aron S.; Laibson, David I.; Bennett, David A. (BioMed Central, 2011)
      Background: Emerging data from younger and middle-aged persons suggest that cognitive ability is negatively associated with risk aversion, but this association has not been studied among older persons who are at high risk ...

    • A Commitment Contract to Achieve Virologic Suppression in Poorly Adherent Patients with HIV/AIDS 

      Alsan, Marcella; Beshears, John Leonard; Armstrong, Wendy S.; Choi, James J.; Madrian, Brigitte; Nguyen, Minh Ly T.; Del Rio, Carlos; Laibson, David I.; Marconi, Vincent C. (Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health), 2017)
      Objective: Assess whether a commitment contract informed by behavioral economics leads to persistent virologic suppression among HIV-positive patients with poor antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence. Design: Single-center ...

    • Consumers’ Misunderstanding of Health Insurance 

      Loewenstein, George; Friedman, Joelle Y.; McGill, Barbara; Ahmad, Sarah; Linck, Suzanne; Sinkula, Stacey; Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Kolstad, Jonathan; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte; List, John A.; Volpp, Kevin G. (Elsevier BV, 2013)
      We report results from two surveys of representative samples of Americans with private health insurance. The first examines how well Americans understand, and believe they understand, traditional health insurance coverage. ...

    • A Cue-Theory of Consumption 

      Laibson, David I. (MIT Press, 2000)
      Psychological experiments demonstrate that repeated pairings of a cue and a consumption good eventually create cue-based complementarities: the presence of the cue raises the marginal utility derived from consumption. In ...

    • Does Aggregated Returns Disclosure Increase Portfolio Risk Taking? 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2017-06-09)
      Many experiments have found that participants take more investment risk if they see returns less frequently, see portfolio-level returns (rather than each individual asset’s returns), or see long-horizon (rather than ...

    • Does front-loading taxation increase savings? Evidence from Roth 401(k) introductions 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte (Elsevier BV, 2017)
      Can governments increase private savings by taxing savings up front instead of in retirement? Roth 401(k) contributions are not tax-deductible in the contribution year, but withdrawals in retirement are untaxed. The more ...

    • The Effect of Providing Peer Information on Retirement Savings Decisions 

      Beshears, John Leonard; Choi, James J.; Laibson, David I.; Madrian, Brigitte; Milkman, Katherine L. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015)
      Using a field experiment in a 401(k) plan, we measure the effect of disseminating information about peer behavior on savings. Low-saving employees received simplified plan enrollment or contribution increase forms. A ...

    • Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics 

      Taubinsky, Dmitry (2014-06-06)
      This dissertation consists of three essays examining the implications of human psychology for economic behavior and market outcomes.

    • Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics 

      Mollerstrom, Johanna Britta (2013-10-08)
      This dissertation consists of three essays which make use of laboratory experiments in order to investigate how procedural or contextual factors impact human behavior.