The field of behavioral economics is one of the fastest-growing fields in economics in recent years. Not long ago this was a small field, but over the last decade or so, the field gained more recognition, and today it seems clear that psychological motivations and biases affect economic behavior...

The article reports the results of a field experiment used to study dishonest behavior in a natural setting. Customers in a restaurant in tables of one or two diners who paid with cash received excessive change of either 10 or 40 Shekels (about $3 or $12). A majority of customers (128 out of...

The article presents a model that analyzes the optimal strategy of multi-product firms when consumers are affected by reference prices. Generally, the stronger the consideration of reference prices is, the more intensified the competition is and the lower are the prices and profits. In some...

Experimental evidence suggests that consumers are affected by reference prices and by relative price differences (“relative thinking”). A linear-city model of two retailers that sell two goods suggests how this consumer behavior affects firm strategy and market outcomes. A simple model...

Experimental evidence suggests that consumers are affected by reference prices and by relative price differences ("relative thinking"). A linear-city model of two retailers that sell two goods suggests how this consumer behavior affects firm strategy and market outcomes. A simple model analyzes...

The article presents an experiment that illustrates a behavior that I denote “relative thinking.” Subjects in the experiment revealed the minimal price difference for which they were willing to spend 20 minutes and go to a cheaper store. Five different goods and nine different prices were...

Tipping is a multi-billion-dollar phenomenon that standard economic models find hard to explain. I discuss several aspects of tipping and divide tipping to six different categories: reward-tipping, price- tipping, tipping-in-advance, bribery-tipping, holiday-tipping and gift- tipping, and...

The article presents a theory that I denote “Relative Thinking Theory,” which claims that people consider relative differences and not only absolute differences when making various economics decisions, even in those cases where the rational model dictates that people should consider only...

An important question about social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare; I address it by examining the characteristics of tipped and non-tipped occupations. Tipping prevalence is negatively correlated with worker’s income and consumer’s monitoring ability and positively with...

Some economists believe that social norms are created to improve welfare where the market fails. I show that tipping is such a norm, using a model in which a waiter chooses service quality and then a customer chooses the tip. The customer’s utility depends on the social norm about tipping and...