Replication data for: Who Is (More) Rational?

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Syngjoo Choi; Shachar Kariv; Wieland Müller; Dan Silverman

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Data_and_Code_for_AER			12/06/2019 04:20:PM
LICENSE.txt	text/plain	14.6 KB	12/06/2019 11:20:AM

Project Citation:

Choi, Syngjoo, Kariv, Shachar, Müller, Wieland, and Silverman, Dan. Replication data for: Who Is (More) Rational? Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2014. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-12-06. https://doi.org/10.3886/E116126V1

Project Description

Summary: Revealed preference theory offers a criterion for decision-making quality: if decisions are high quality then there exists a utility function the choices maximize. We conduct a large-scale experiment to test for consistency with utility maximization. Consistency scores vary markedly within and across socioeconomic groups. In particular, consistency is strongly related to wealth: a standard deviation increase in consistency is associated with 15-19 percent more household wealth. This association is quantitatively robust to conditioning on correlates of unobserved constraints, preferences, and beliefs. Consistency with utility maximization under laboratory conditions thus captures decision-making ability that applies across domains and influences important real-world outcomes.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:
      D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
      D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
      D81 Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
      D83 Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
      D15 Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
      G11 Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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Published Versions

V1 [2019-12-06]

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