Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Informational Requirements of Nudging AbstractA nudge is a non-coercive paternalistic intervention that attempts to improve choices by manipulating the framing of a decision problem. As any paternalism, it faces the difficulty of determining the appropriate welfare criterion. We propose a welfare-theoretic foundation for nudging similar in spirit to the classic revealed preference approach, by investigating a model where preferences and mistakes of an agent have to be elicited from her choices under different frames. We provide characterizations of the classes of behavioral models for which nudging is possible or impossible. For the case where nudging is possible in principle, we derive results on the required quantity of information.JEL-Code: D030, D040, D600, D820.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractWith infinite horizon, optimal rules for sequential search from a known distribution feature a constant reservation value that is independent of whether recall of past options is possible. We extend this result to the the case when there are multiple distributions to choose from: it is optimal to sample from the same distribution in every period and to continue searching until a constant reservation value is reached. JEL classification: D83

We study the bilateral trade problem put forward by Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) under the assumption that agents are loss-averse, using the model developed by Kőszegi and Rabin (2006, 2007). We show that the endowment effect increases the sellers information rent, and that the attachment effect reduces the buyer's information rent. Further, depending on the distribution of types, loss-aversion can reduce the severity of the impossibility problem. However, the result cannot be reversed. Turning to the design of optimal mechanisms, we show that in both revenue and welfare maximizing mechanisms the designer optimally provides the agents with full insurance in the money dimension and with partial insurance in the trade dimension. In fact, when the stakes are large, loss-aversion can eliminate trade altogether. We show that all results display robustness to the exact specification of the reference point and provide some results on general mechanism design problems.

This paper studies the optimal design of dynamic research contests. We introduce interim transfers, which are paid in every period while the contest is ongoing, to an otherwise standard setting. We show that a contest where (i) the principal can stop the contest in any period, (ii) a constant interim transfer is paid to agents in each period while the contest is ongoing, and (iii) a final prize is paid once the principal stops the contest, is optimal for the principal and implements the first-best. (JEL D82, O32)