Calorie labels are widely used as an information disclosure policy, yet their behavioural effects remain debated. Across four studies (N = 2,067), including one nationally representative online sample of the U.S., we examine how individuals adjust portion-size choices after updating misperceptions about meal calorie content. Using more than 45,000 incentivised calorie estimates and 6,000 food choices, we find that food characteristics, not individual traits, better predict misperceptions, and that larger misestimations are associated with extreme portion choices. Portion-size adjustments after a label reveals the caloric content are substantially smaller than the initial estimation errors. Responses are asymmetric: correcting underestimation is associated with larger reductions in portion size than the increases observed after correcting overestimation. Individuals who estimate calories accurately show little to no adjustment. Increases after correcting overestimation are concentrated among healthier foods and lower-conflict eaters. These results highlight asymmetric behavioural responses to disclosed information and suggest that average calorie changes may obscure important heterogeneity.
This paper examines whether increasingly complex decisions under ambiguity are better described by more complex behavioural models. Using an allocation experiment, we vary structural complexity through the number of possible outcomes and decision stages and compare Expected Utility (EU), αMaxMin (AMM), and Choquet Expected Utility (CEU). EU is the most frequently selected model according to AICc in all three ambiguous-lottery parts, although the strength of its relative advantage varies across tasks, with CEU remaining competitive in the most complex part. Estimated risk-attitude parameters exhibit a relatively stable central pattern across tasks, whereas ambiguity-attitude parameters vary more noticeably across task structures. Overall, the results show that explicitly incorporating ambiguity attitudes does not uniformly improve penalized model fit as structural complexity increases. Rather, the empirical value of more flexible ambiguity models depends on the structure of the choice environment. The findings highlight the importance of evaluating model complexity empirically rather than assuming that structurally more complex decisions necessarily require more flexible behavioural models.
This study examines how individuals’ strategic sophistication shapes social distancing during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when distancing was a costly protective decision under two sources of risk: the private risk of infection and strategic uncertainty about whether others would comply. We develop a weakest-link public goods game with private costs of social distancing, in which agents differ in their level-k depth of reasoning about others. The model predicts that the probability of distancing rises with the level-k type when baseline compliance is low. We test this prediction using large-scale, nationally representative survey data that include incentivized experiments to measure participants’ level-k types. We find that a one-level increase in level-k lowers the probability of leaving home daily by 1.6 percentage points in Singapore and is associated with a 3.4 percentage-point lower probability of maintaining or increasing outdoor activity in South Korea.
This paper explores the relationship between facial attractiveness and risk-taking preferences using three standard elicitation methods, each modeled on its own scale. Drawing on incentivized samples of students and professionals recruited directly from LinkedIn (plumbers, lawyers, and MBA-holding business professionals) along with a standard, continuous attractiveness measure, I find that beauty is associated with greater risk tolerance across generalized, financial, and social risk domains, most prominently among lawyers and MBAs. A validated proxy for confidence is consistent with partial mediation in the generalized and financial domains, with strength varying by occupation, while a direct association between attractiveness and risk tolerance persists throughout. Beauty is particularly correlated with cooperation in the socially risky Stag Hunt setting, a link that operates largely outside the confidence channel. These associations have implications for occupational selection, fair talent allocation, digital recruiting, and other managerial settings.
Embedded in the value of a statistical life (VSL) is a stream of valuations of each expected year of life. The value of a statistical life year (VSLY) has a policy-relevant role analogous to the VSL, except that it monetizes risks to short periods of life extension. This article reviews previous studies and reports new labor market estimates of the average VSLY and the variation of these values with age using two methods—inferring the average VSLY based on estimates of the VSL and a new method that provides direct empirical estimates of the valuation of a discounted life year. The direct estimates of the VSLY yield larger values than the constructed estimates. The VSLY based on fatality rates by industry and occupation is 600,000 to800,000 at a 3
