Effects of the Menu of Loan Contracts on Borrower Behavior
通过模拟美国学生贷款还款选项的实验室实验，研究合同菜单（包括不可选合同）如何影响借款人在高收益高风险与低收益低风险任务间的选择，发现标准经济模型无法解释的行为，而预期后悔、简化偏好和感激等行为模型更能解释结果。
We study how the menu of contracts presented to a decision maker—including contracts she may be precluded from choosing—affects her choice of remunerative but risky actions relative to lower paying, less risky alternatives. We do this through a series of laboratory experiments modeled after the loan repayment options offered to U.S. student borrowers, analyzing borrowers’ task (career) choices in settings that vary the menu of available and unavailable loan repayment plans and knowledge of unavailable options. In these experiments, we observe behavior that is inconsistent with predictions from standard economic models in which agents can easily make complex decisions and each alternative in a choice set is evaluated independently of other potential options. Instead, we provide evidence that expanding the menu of choices or making an agent aware of choices that she has been denied can affect how a contract is valued. Our empirical findings are most consistent with behavioral models that allow for anticipated regret over a choice that turns out to be suboptimal ex post or preferences for simplicity and gratitude for being unburdened from having to make a choice. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, decision analysis.