Decision-making in complex and uncertain environments - Experimental studies in behavioral economics

There is a large body of empirical evidence that people do not always behave according to game theoretic predictions in many economic or social environments. Possible deviations from standard-economic behavior can occur when individuals have either (i) non-standard beliefs, which are systematically biased, (ii) non-standard preferences, such as preferences for fairness, or (iii) when they engage in imperfect utility maximization, for example, because of limited attention and only consider salient alternatives in their choice sets (Rabin, 2002). This thesis addresses issues related to such forms of boundedly rational behavior and non-standard utility maximization.