From Mice to Men: Field Studies in Behavioral Economics

This dissertation uses naturally occurring data from four different settings to study psychological factors that influence real-life decisions. Chapter 2 shows that contestants in a TV game show often deviate from the unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. These deviations can be explained by limited foresight, where a contestant only thinks ahead to the next stage of the game. Chapter 3 studies the effect of marginally trailing on performance in professional sports matches. Contrasting prior research, we find little evidence of such an effect in Australian football, American football, rugby and basketball. Chapter 4 shows that the demand for life-saving medications is higher when the price includes a discount compared to when the same final price materializes absent a discount. Chapter 5 investigates how within-match variation in incentives affects the performance of darts players. We find that amateur and youth players display a sizable performance decrease at decisive moments, whereas professional players appear less susceptible of such choking under pressure.