Almost everyone struggles to act in their individual and collective best interests, particularly
when doing so requires forgoing a more immediately enjoyable alternative. Other than …

A sound understanding of poverty traps—defined as poverty that is self-reinforcing due to
the poor's equilibrium behaviors—and their underlying mechanisms is fundamentally …

Many have argued that digital technologies such as smartphones and social media are
addictive. We develop an economic model of digital addiction and estimate it using a …

Socially responsible behavior is crucial for slowing the spread of infectious diseases.
However, economic and epidemiological models of disease transmission abstract from …

Behavioral development economics applies theories and ideas from psychology and
behavioral economics to the study of questions in development economics. We begin by …

All individuals rely on a fundamental set of mental capacities and functions, or bandwidth, in
their economic and non-economic lives. Yet, many factors associated with poverty, such as …

We review research that measures time preferences—ie, preferences over intertemporal
trade—offs. We distinguish between studies using financial flows, which we call “money …

We investigate how the anticipation of COVID-19 vaccines affects voluntary social
distancing. In a large-scale preregistered survey experiment with a representative sample …

Intertemporal tradeoffs play a key role in many personal decisions and policy questions. We
describe models of intertemporal choice, identify empirical regularities in choice, and pose …

In 2016, 90% of young Americans reported an interest in politics. 80% intended to vote. Yet
only 43% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 ended up actually casting a ballot …