Neuroeconomics http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-neu Neuroeconomics 2026-08-10 Beyond Time: Unveiling the Invisible Burden of Mental Load https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20269&r=&r=neu This paper introduces a novel, scalable methodology to measure individual perceptions of gaps in mental load—the cognitive and emotional burden associated with organizing household and childcare tasks—within heterosexual couples. Using original data from the TIMES Observatory in Italy, the study combines time-use diaries with new survey indicators to quantify cognitive labor, emotional fatigue, and the spillover of mental load into the workplace. Results reveal systematic gender asymmetries: women are significantly more likely than men to bear organizational responsibility for domestic tasks, report lower satisfaction with this division, and experience higher emotional fatigue. These burdens are underestimated by their partners. The effects are particularly pronounced among college-educated and employed women, who also report greater spillovers of family responsibilities than men during paid work hours. The perceived responsibility for managing family activities is more strongly associated with within-couple gaps in time use than with the absolute time spent on their execution, underscoring the relational and conflictual nature of mental load. Barigozzi, Francesca Biroli, Pietro Monfardini, Chiara Montinari, Natalia Pisanelli, Elena Vitellozzi, Sveva Gender; Time allocation; Time-use 2025-05 Imperfect Self-knowledge about Skills and Skill Mismatch https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12814&r=&r=neu Why do people sort into poorly fitting occupations? This paper shows that imperfect self-knowledge about skills is an important source of skill mismatch at labor market entry. We use unique data from standardized professional aptitude tests linked to administrative records on educational trajectories and early labor market outcomes in Switzerland. The data allow us to observe objective skills and subjective skill beliefs for many productivity-relevant skills in a high-stakes setting. We document large differences among individuals in how well their beliefs align with their skills. Imperfect self-knowledge predicts misaligned occupational aspirations, higher realized skill mismatch, and a higher probability of dropout. Guided by a Roy-style model of occupational choice with imperfect self-knowledge, we interpret these findings as evidence that distorted self-assessments at the school-to-work transition contribute to the misallocation of talent. Daniel Goller Enzo Brox Stefan C. Wolter information frictions, occupational choice, skill mismatch, self-knowledge 2026 Gene x Environment Interactions: Polygenic Scores and the Impact of an Early Childhood Intervention in Colombia https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20221&r=&r=neu We evaluate impacts heterogeneity of an Early Childhood Intervention in Colombia, with respect to the Educational Attainment Polygenic Score (EA4 PGS) constructed from DNA data based on GWAS weights from a European population. We find that the EA4 PGS is predictive of several measures of child development, mother’s IQ and, to some extent, educational attainment. We also show that the impacts of the intervention are significantly greater in children with low PGS, to the point that the intervention eliminates the initial genetic disadvantage. Lastly, we find that children with high PGS attract more parental stimulation; however, the latter increases more strongly in children with low PGS. Attanasio, Orazio Conti, Gabriella Jervis, Pamela Meghir, Costas Okbay, Aysu 2025-05 Food Insecurity, Cognitive Control, and Risky Choice https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apl:wpaper:26-08&r=&r=neu Food insecurity affects roughly 18 million people in the United States and 2.3 billion globally. Given its prevalence, this study aims to examine how food insecurity and resulting anxiety affect cognitive control and decision-making. Samples of n=102 food-insecure and n=102 food-secure individuals were recruited from the Prolific online subject pool to complete an incentivized Stroop Task and a Monetary Risk Taking task. Randomized treatment assignments administered either a High or Low Cognitive Load manipulation prior to decision making by prompting participants to consider a more or less expensive unexpected financial expense. While food insecurity did not impact cognitive control and risky choices as hypothesized, it may indirectly affect outcomes via anxiety. And, exploratory analysis of response times data suggest food insecurity may promote some increased risk taking due to less deliberative decision processing. The role of anxiety and its effect on choice process among the food-insecure likely merits further investigation. fatigue. Key Words: food insecurity, cognitive load, anxiety, risky-choice David L. Dickinson Jacob Norwood 2026 Do children's genes evoke educational expectations? Direct genetic effects on parents' and teachers' college encouragement https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2026-035&r=&r=neu Parents’ and teachers’ expectations and aspirations are critical drivers of educational outcomes, yet what causally shapes these expectations remains unclear. In the present study, we address this question by deploying the random experiment of meiosis: namely, conditional on parental genotype, offspring genotype is random, allowing for the unconfounding of unique child characteristics from the more general family and household environment. Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we employ Mendelian imputation to estimate the direct genetic effects of 18 polygenic indices on college encouragement, net of parental genetic background. The genetic propensity for educational attainment and mathematical ability predict stronger expectations of college attendance, while smoking behavior predicts weaker expectations. Psychiatric traits show no effects after multiple-testing correction, indicating that responses are concentrated on cognitive and behavioral traits. Mediation analysis finds that prospectively measured teachers’ encouragement accounts for roughly a quarter of the genetic effects on educational attainment for cognitive traits, but not for psychiatric traits. Genetic effects on expectations are amplified among high-SES parents and first-born children. Thus, genetic influences on educational expectations are narrow in trait scope and uneven across families, with encouragement serving as one channel linking genetic differences to educational inequality. Philipp Dierker Dalton Conley USA, children, education, genetics, parents, teachers 2026 Reassessing Qualitative Self-Assessments and Experimental Validation https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19953&r=&r=neu Qualitative self-assessments of economic preferences have recently gained popularity, often supported by experimental validation, a method that links them to choices in incentivized elicitations. We illustrate theoretically that experimental validation may fail to produce reliable new measures. Empirically, analyzing data from over 13, 000 participants across diverse samples, we document four key findings. First, qualitative self-assessments and traditional incentivized measures exhibit weak correlations, even when accounting for response noise. Second, qualitative self-assessments sometimes correlate more strongly with theoretically distinct incentivized elicitations than those for which they are intended to proxy. Third, relationships between qualitative self-assessments and various attributes---including geographical location, demographics, and behaviors---are unrelated to variation in incentivized elicitations. Fourth, qualitative self-assessments are no simpler for participants than incentivized elicitations: these questions show a common heuristic of extreme or midpoint responses, especially by individuals with lower cognitive ability. Chapman, Jonathan Ortoleva, Pietro Snowberg, Erik Yariv, Leeat Camerer, Colin 2025-02 It Runs in the Family: Occupational Choice and the Allocation of Talent https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20099&r=&r=neu Children disproportionately enter their parents’ occupations. We examine the implications of this tendency for intergenerational income mobility and talent allocation in the economy. Using Swedish data on cognitive and non-cognitive skills, we estimate a general-equilibrium Roy model in which access to occupations depends on parental occupation. Equalizing access reduces occupational following by roughly one-half and increases income mobility by about one-third without reducing output. Gains are concentrated among sons of low-earning fathers with skills suited to higher-paying occupations. Quasi-experimental evidence exploiting long-run employment declines in fathers’ occupations supports the model estimates: reduced following improves skill matching and raises earnings. Sigurdsson, Jósef Kramer, John Misallocation; Roy model 2025-04 A Cognitive Theory of Ambiguity Attitudes https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1587&r=&r=neu This paper provides axiomatic foundations for a model in which ambiguity attitudes are endogenously determined through cognitive optimization. The decision maker evaluates acts using alternative non-additive aggregation rules and optimally trades off the benefits of less ambiguity-averse evaluation against cognitive cost. The resulting framework generalizes Choquet expected utility and accounts for preference reversals identified by Machina (2009). The model is characterized by a novel axiom, Comonotonic Convexity, which regulates the evaluation of mixtures by requiring the decision maker to avoid hedging whenever it yields no benefit. We interpret this axiom as reflecting aversion to unnecessary complexity in the evaluation of acts. Fernando Payró Chew Norio Takeoka Jianming Xia ambiguity attitude, Choquet expected utility, cognitive optimization, comonotonicity, Machina’s paradox 2026-07 Poverty, Cognitive Load, and Food Choice https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05683886&r=&r=neu Romane Vandroux Simon Walenczak Léo Toussard 2026-06-30 Dementia Diagnosis Underreporting and Downstream Care Engagement and Planning Among US Older Adults https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1794&r=&r=neu A documented diagnosis only benefits patients who know about it. Using nationally representative Health and Retirement Study data linked to Medicare claims (1998-2020), we quantify the gap between clinically documented dementia diagnoses and patients' own reports. Among self-respondents with probable dementia and a claims-based diagnosis, 67 percent do not report having been diagnosed-more than double the average underreporting rate for arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, and depression among the same population-and underreporting is highest in the early disease stage, precisely when decision-making capacity is greatest. Underreporting is more prevalent among individuals who live alone, are dually eligible, have less education, and are non-Hispanic Black, and less prevalent among Medicare Advantage enrollees and patients seen by dementia specialists, consistent with roles for stigma, social vulnerability, and provider disclosure incentives. Underreporting predicts lower post-diagnosis care engagement and a lower likelihood of establishing a will or trust, suggesting information frictions undermine the returns to early detection. Qian, Yuting Gavulic, Kyle A. Chen, Xi Dementia, underreporting, diagnostic disclosure, Medicare, aging, cognitive decline, end-of-life planning 2026 Cognitive Friction and Rooftop Solar Adoption: Evidence from a Latent Class WTA Model in Rural China https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404857&r=&r=neu This paper studies how cognitive friction shapes rural households’ willingness to lease rooftops for distributed solar photovoltaics. Using double-bounded WTA survey data from 311 households in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, we estimate a two-class latent class model that allows households to follow different information-processing rules. About 66.8 percent of households belong to a policy-familiar class that incorporates return confidence into project valuation. Their mean WTA is 31.03 yuan per square meter per year, compared with 57.38 yuan for the policy-unfamiliar class. Counterfactual simulations show that improving return confidence and policy familiarity can sharply raise participation and substitute for cash subsidies. Raising both to their highest levels increases zero-subsidy participation from 15.1 percent to 88.7 percent and generates substantial annual CO2 abatement. Chao, Zenghui Gu, Wenhao Xu, Chenguang Zhang, Jun Consumer/Household Economics 2026 A Cognitive Theory of Reasoning and Choice https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:econwp:qt2hc7c06v&r=&r=neu Abstract We present a theory of choice in which attention to the features of options is determined by the decision maker’s categorization of the current problem in a set of problems she solved in the past. Categorization depends on goal-relevant and contextual problem-level features. The model yields heterogeneity in attention and choice in a given problem based on different past experiences and instability when changes in irrelevant context cause recategorization. We show that heterogeneous and unstable representations of a choice problem unify major biases in judgment and decision making. Bordalo, Pedro Gennaioli, Nicola Lanzani, Giacomo Shleifer, Andrei 38 Economics (for-2020), 3801 Applied Economics (for-2020), 3802 Econometrics (for-2020), 3803 Economic Theory (for-2020), Behavioral and Social Science (rcdc), Mental Health (rcdc), 14 Economics (for), Economics (science-metrix), 3801 Applied economics (for-2020), 3802 Econometrics (for-2020), 3803 Economic theory (for-2020) 2026-07-11