Working Papers
"The Compromise and Attraction Effects Through Frame Preferences"
The compromise and attraction effects are two of the most robust and well documented violations of WARP. They arise in the context of goods which can be judged along several distinct attributes. I construct a novel method of representing them by reducing the context of a menu to a “frame,” representing the worst option along each attribute in the menu, and creating a collection of preferences indexed by frames. The preferences behave as though a good’s attractiveness along each attribute is judged relative to the frame with declining marginal utility. I also characterize the properties of a function which represents this collection of preferences. Finally, I give a representation theorem characterizing the set of preferences represented by such a function.
"Extremist Politics and the Preference for Compromise" (with Benjamin L. Solow)
We incorporate two well-documented cases of non-standard preferences in a two-dimensional citizen candidate model of plurality elections. We show that the compromise and attraction effects, violations of WARP which we model through frames of reference, generate novel incentives for candidate behavior. Specifically, entry by an extreme candidate may cause a voter’s frame of reference to shift in ways that favor particular moderate candidates. We show that incorporating these preferences generates equilibria where extremist candidates enter plurality elections in order to attractively frame their preferred moderate, even if the extremist has probability zero of obtaining office themselves.
"Giving the Gift of Guilt Avoidance"
I consider the effect of guilt on preferences in the circumstances of gift giving. A decision maker who experiences guilt may receive an increase in surplus from a gift card allowing guilt-free indulgence, potentially beyond even the surplus she'd receive from an equivalent cash gift. This paper isolates the behavior of guilt avoidance by exploiting a multi-period setting which incorporates a distinction between the decision maker's preferences over what she'd receive, and what she would choose. A representation inspired by Kopylov (2009) is adapted to this setting, providing a representation theorem for these preferences.
The compromise and attraction effects are two of the most robust and well documented violations of WARP. They arise in the context of goods which can be judged along several distinct attributes. I construct a novel method of representing them by reducing the context of a menu to a “frame,” representing the worst option along each attribute in the menu, and creating a collection of preferences indexed by frames. The preferences behave as though a good’s attractiveness along each attribute is judged relative to the frame with declining marginal utility. I also characterize the properties of a function which represents this collection of preferences. Finally, I give a representation theorem characterizing the set of preferences represented by such a function.
"Extremist Politics and the Preference for Compromise" (with Benjamin L. Solow)
We incorporate two well-documented cases of non-standard preferences in a two-dimensional citizen candidate model of plurality elections. We show that the compromise and attraction effects, violations of WARP which we model through frames of reference, generate novel incentives for candidate behavior. Specifically, entry by an extreme candidate may cause a voter’s frame of reference to shift in ways that favor particular moderate candidates. We show that incorporating these preferences generates equilibria where extremist candidates enter plurality elections in order to attractively frame their preferred moderate, even if the extremist has probability zero of obtaining office themselves.
"Giving the Gift of Guilt Avoidance"
I consider the effect of guilt on preferences in the circumstances of gift giving. A decision maker who experiences guilt may receive an increase in surplus from a gift card allowing guilt-free indulgence, potentially beyond even the surplus she'd receive from an equivalent cash gift. This paper isolates the behavior of guilt avoidance by exploiting a multi-period setting which incorporates a distinction between the decision maker's preferences over what she'd receive, and what she would choose. A representation inspired by Kopylov (2009) is adapted to this setting, providing a representation theorem for these preferences.
Works in Progress
"Data Collector, M.D.: Moral Hazard and the Difficulty of Applying Big Data to Medicine"