One of the most well-established empirical facts is that exposure to advertisements increases a consumers’ tendency to buy the promoted product. The standard interpretation of this empirical regularity is that advertising intensity is an element of the utility. Here we show that if consumers are risk-averse and advertising conveys information about product attributes, the empirical regularity c...

We develop a behavioral axiomatic characterization of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) under risk aversion. Given is an individual agent’s behavior in the market: assume a finite collection of asset purchases with corresponding prices. We show that such behavior satisfies a “revealed preference axiom” if and only if there exists a SEU model (a subjective probability over states and a concave u...

We develop a behavioral axiomatic characterization of exponentially discounted utility (EDU) over consumption streams. Given is an individual agent’s behavior in the market: assume a finite collection of purchases across periods. We show that such behavior satisfies a “revealed preference axiom” if and only if there exists a EDU model (a discount rate per period and a concave utility function o...

A (partially naïve) quasi-hyperbolic discounter repeatedly chooses whether to complete a task. Her net benefits of task completion are drawn independently between periods from time-invariant distribution. We show that the probability completing conditional on not having done so earlier increases towards deadline. Conversely, we establish nonidentifiability by proving for any time-preference par...

We show how optimal saving in a two-period model is affected when prudence and risk aversion of the underlying utility function change. Increasing prudence alone will induce higher savings only if, for certain combinations of the interest rate and the pure time discount rate, there is distributional neutrality between the two periods. Otherwise, changes of risk aversion that affect the distribu...

We reformulate neoclassical consumer choice by focusing on λ, the marginal utility of money. As the opportunity cost of current expenditure, λ is approximated by the slope of the indirect utility function of the continuation. We argue that λ can largely supplant the role of an arbitrary budget constraint in partial equilibrium analysis. The result is a better grounded, more flexible and more in...

We prove that a preference relation which is continuous on every straight line has a utility representation if its domain is a convex subset of a finite dimensional vector space. Our condition on the domain of a preference relation is stronger than Eilenberg (1941) and Debreu (1959, 1964), but our condition on the continuity of a preference relation is strictly weaker than theirs. JEL classific...

abstract this paper sketches a model of product differentiation according to the hedonic hypothesis that is based on the theory of consumer behavior of lancaster (1971). lancaster suggested that utility is derived from the characteristics of the good and not the good itself. thus, from the perception of the consumer, every characteristic has a price. this is the hedonic (or implicit) price. we ...

We derive a new cost of information in rational inattention problems, the neighborhood-based functions, starting from observation that many settings involve exogenous states with topological structure. These functions are uniformly posterior separable and capture notions perceptual distance. This second property ensures costs, unlike mutual information, make accurate predictions about behavior ...

We study the life cycle of a firm that produces good unknown quality. The manages its quality by investing while consumers learn via public breakthroughs; if fails to generate such breakthroughs, revenue falls and it eventually exits. Optimal investment depends on firm’s reputation (the market’s belief about quality) self-esteem own quality), is single-peaked in time since breakthrough. derive ...