This paper shows that smoking intensity, i.e. the amount of nicotine extracted per cigarette smoked, responds to changes in excise taxes and tobacco prices. We exploit data covering the period 1988 to 2006 across many US states. Moreover, we provide new evidence on the importance of cotinine measures in explaining long-run smoking behaviour and we investigate the sensitivity of smoking cessatio...

Two econometric issues arise in the structural estimation of consumer or producer demand systems in the presence of many binding non-negativity constraints. First, most existing methods entail the evaluation of multivariate probability integrals. Second, the issue of statistical coherency must be addressed. We circumvent both of these issues using Gibbs Sampling, along with data augmentation an...

Laboratory evidence shows that when people have to argue for a given position, they persuade themselves about the position’s factual and moral superiority. Such self-persuasion limits potential of communication resolve conflict reduce polarization. We test this phenomenon in field setting, at international debating competitions randomly assign experienced motivated debaters one side topical mot...

Using data from a unique pricing experiment, we test Vickrey’s conjecture that responsive pricing can be used to smooth demand shocks. Our evidence shows that increasing the responsiveness of price to demand conditions reduces the magnitude of deviations in capacity utilization rates from a pre-determined target level. We discuss implications for the use of demand-side incentives to deal with c...

Is the cost of living higher for the poor? Recent studies based on unit values (the ratio of expenditure to quantity) suggest that poor households pay substantially higher prices because liquidity constraints force them to purchase goods in small quantities and not realize bulk discounts. Unit values are subject to several biases and reflect economizing choices made by households, so they may n...

We document a decline in the frequency of shopping trips United States since 1980 and consider its implications for measurement consumption inequality. A as households stock up on storable goods (i.e., inventory behavior) will lead to rise expenditure inequality when latter is measured at high frequency, even underlying unchanged. find that most recently documented 1980s can be accounted by thi...

We quantify reference dependence and loss aversion in the housing market using rich Danish administrative data. Our structural model includes aversion, dependence, financial constraints, a sale decision, matches key nonparametric moments, including “hockey stick” listing prices with nominal gains, bunching at zero realized gains. Households derive substantial utility from gains over original ho...

A central question in the analysis of fuel economy policy is whether consumers are myopic with regards to future costs. We provide first evidence on consumer valuation from a natural experiment that provides exogenous variation ratings. examine short-run equilibrium effects restatement ratings affected 1.6 million vehicles. Using implied changes willingness pay, we find act myopically: indiffer...

JEL Classification Code(s): J 31, J 71) "Perceptions of Discrimination, Effort to Obtain Psychological Balance, and Relative Wages: Can We Infer a Happiness Gradient?" There is a substantial literature that finds a linkage between happiness and relative economic well being as measured by earnings or wages. There is also a well documented racial gap in wages. One explanation for this is disparat...

We study the spending profile of workers who experience both a positive transitory income shock (lump-sum severance pay) and negative permanent (layoff). Using de-identified expenditure employment data from Brazil, we show that increase at layoff by 35 percent despite experiencing 14 long-term loss. find high sensitivity to cash-on-hand across consumption categories for several sources variatio...