% WARNING: This file may contain UTF-8 (unicode) characters. % While non-8-bit characters are officially unsupported in BibTeX, you % can use them with the biber backend of biblatex % usepackage[backend=biber]{biblatex} @techreport{NBERw23625, title = "Quicksand or Bedrock for Behavioral Economics? Assessing Foundational Empirical Questions", author = "Stango, Victor and Yoong, Joanne and Zinman, Jonathan", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "23625", year = "2017", month = "July", doi = {10.3386/w23625}, URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w23625", abstract = {Behavioral economics lacks empirical evidence on some foundational empirical questions. We adapt standard elicitation methods to measure multiple behavioral factors per person in a representative U.S. sample, along with financial condition, cognitive skills, financial literacy, classical preferences and demographics. Individually, B-factors are prevalent, distinct from other decision inputs, and correlate negatively with financial outcomes in richly-conditioned regressions. Conditioning further on other B-factors does not change the results, validating common practice of modeling B-factors separately. Corrections for low task/survey effort modestly strengthen the results. Our findings provide bedrock empirical foundations for behavioral economics, and offer methodological guidance for research designs.}, }