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Laibson, David

David Isaac Laibson (born 26 June 1966) is a professor of economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1994. His research focuses on macroeconomics, intertemporal choice, behavioral economics and neuroeconomics.

Laibson is the son of Ruth and Peter Laibson, and grew up in Haverford, PA. He received an A.B. (summa) from Harvard in 1988, studying under Benjamin M. Friedman, and went on to study at the London School of Economics (MSc. in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics) where he was a recipient of a Marshall Scholarship. He received his PhD from MIT in 1994 and joined the faculty at Harvard once he graduated. He has since gained tenure. He is married to the mathematician Nina Zipser, and they have a son, Max.

At Harvard, he teaches a popular undergraduate class on "Psychology and Economics". In addition he teaches graduate courses on macroeconomics, behavioral economics and dynamic programming. His research has been published in prestigious journals such as the QJE, AER, JEP, Econometrica, and Science. Laibson is perhaps best known within economics for his work on time inconsistency, especially his model of quasi-hyperbolic discounting. One of his most prominent early contributions has been the "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting" paper in QJE, 1997 where he studied the intertemporal behavior of a time-inconsistent consumer. This work provides a tractable model for self-control problems, in which agents have difficulty sticking to their longterm goals. Agents in Professor Laibson's models generally value "commitment devices," such as 401(k) plans or housing equity, that let them accumulate assets without as much temptation to splurge. These models also explain the "debt puzzle," that American consumers demonstrate both short-run impatience and long-run patience in their lifecycle savings decisions. Laibson has since developed hyperbolic discounting research in many directions, from more advanced theoretical models to computational macroeconomics to conceptual applications.

Published work

  1. Milkman, Katherine L., John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigette C. Madrian, “Using Implementation Intentions Prompts to Enhance  Influenza Vaccination Rates.” Forthcoming, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  2. Fuster, Andreas, Benjamin Hebert, and David Laibson, “Natural Expectations, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and Asset Pricing.” forthcoming National Bureau of Economic Research, Macroannual.
  3. Chauvin, Kyle, David Laibson, and Johanna Mollerstrom, "Asset Bubbles and the Cost of Economic Fluctuations." Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking: In press.
  4. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. "Behavioral Economics Perspectives on Public Sector Pension Plans." forthcoming in the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.
  5. Albrecht, Konstanze, David I. Laibson, Matthias Sutter, Kirsten G. Volz, D. Yves von Cramon. 2011. What is for me is not for you: brain correlates of intertemporal choice for self and other Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Vol. 19, No. R1.
  6. Fuster, Andreas, David Laibson, and Brock Mendel. 2010. "Natural Expectations and Macroeconomics FluctuationsJournal of Economic Perspectives.
    Appendix
  7. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian. $100 Bills on the Sidewalk: Suboptimal Saving in 401(k) Plans. Review of Economics and Statistics. 2010.
  8. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian. Why does the law of one price fail? An experiment on index mutual funds. Review of Financial Studies. 2010. 
    Older draft (without Harvard staff sample) summarized in July 2006 NBER Digest.
    Supplement: Prospectuses used in experiments.
  9. Laibson, David and Johanna Mollerstrom. 2010.  Capital Flows, Consumption Booms and Asset Bubbles: A Behavioural Alternative to the Savings Glut HypothesisEconomic Journal. 120: 354-374.
  10. Beshears, John,  James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2010. The Impact of Employer Matching on Savings Plan Participation under Automatic Enrollment. Research Findings in the Economics of Aging. David A. Wise, editor.  
  11. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2010. How Does Simplified Disclosure Affect Individuals' Mutual Fund Choices?. Explorations in the Economics of Aging. David A. Wise, editor.  
    Summarized in July 2009 NBER Digest.
  12. Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, and Brian Weller. 2010. Public Policy and Saving for Retirement: The "Autosave" Features of the Pension Protection Act of 2006. John J. Siegfried, editor.  Better Living Through Economics.
  13. Agarwal, Sumit, John Driscoll, Xavier Gabaix, and David Laibson. 2009. The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life-Cycle and Implications for RegulationBrookings Papers on Economic Activity. Issue 2, 51-117.
    Supplement: What is the Age of Reason?
    Web appendix is here.
  14. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2009. Reinforcement Learning and Savings Behavior. Journal of Finance.
  15. Carroll, Gabriel D., James Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2009. Optimal Defaults and Active Decisions. Quarterly Journal of Economics
    Summarized in Summer 2005 NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health
    Web appendix with proofs is here
    Previous draft with more general model is here
  16. Choi, James J., David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian. 2009. Mental Accounting in Portfolio Choice: Evidence from a Flypaper EffectAmerican Economic Review. 
  17. Chabris, C.F., D.I. Laibson, C.L. Morris, J.P. Schuldt, J.P., and D. Taubinsky. 2009. The allocation of time in decision-making. Journal of the European Economic Association 7 (April): 628-37.
  18. Choi, James, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. Reducing the Complexity Costs of 401(k) Participation Through Quick Enrollment. 2009. Developments in the Economics of Aging, David A. Wise, editor. [Click here for nicely typeset text]
  19. Chabris, Christopher F., David Laibson, Carrie L. Morris, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Dmitry Taubinsky. 2008. Individual Laboratory-Measured Discount Rates Predict Field BehaviorJournal of Risk and Uncertainty.
  20. Beshears, John, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian. 2008. How Are Preferences Revealed? Journal of Public Economics.
  21. Chabris, Christopher, David Laibson, and Jonathan Schuldt. 2008. Intertemporal Choice.Palgrave Dictionary of Economics.
  22. Gabaix, Xavier, and David Laibson. 2008. The Seven Properties of Good Models. in eds Andrew Caplin and Andrew Schotter The Methodologies of Modern Economics: Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics, Oxford University Press. 
  23. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. The Impact of Employer Matching on Savings Plan Participation under Automatic Enrollment. Research Findings in the Economics of Aging. David A. Wise, editor.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Forthcoming.
  24. Choi, James, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian.   Reducing the Complexity Costs of 401(k) Participation Through Quick Enrollmenttm. Developments in the Economics of Aging. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Forthcoming.
  25. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. 2008. The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United StatesLessons from Pension Reform the the Americas. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.  Kay, Stephen J. and Tapen Sinha, editors. 
  26. Benjamin, Daniel J., Christopher F. Chabris, Edward L. Glaeser, Vilmundur Gudnason, Tamara B. Harris, David I. Laibson, Lenore Launer, and Shaun Purcell.  2007. GenoeconomicsBiosocial Surveys, National Research Council of the National Academies. Maxine Weinstein, James W. Vaupel, and Kenneth W. Wachter, editors.
  27. Berns, Gregory S., David Laibson, and George Loewenstein.  2007. Intertemporal choice – toward an integrative frameworkTrends in Cognitive Sciences 11(11): 482-8. 
  28. McClure, Sam, Keith Ericson, David Laibson, George Loewenstein, and Jonathan Cohen. 2007. Time Discounting for Primary RewardsJournal of Neuroscience., 27: 5796–5804. 
  29. Gabaix, Xavier, David Laibson, Guillermo Moloche and Stephen Weinberg. 2006. Costly Information Acquisition: Experimental Analysis of a BoundedlyRational ModelAmerican Economic Review 96 (4): 1043-1068.
  30. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2006.  Saving for Retirement on the Path of Least ResistanceBehavioral Public FinanceToward a New Agenda. Ed McCaffrey and Joel Slemrod, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation 304-51. 
  31. Gabaix, Xavier, and David Laibson. 2006. Shrouded Attributes, Consumer Myopia, and Information Suppression in Competitive MarketsQuarterly Journal of Economics 121 (2): 505-40. 
  32. Choi, James, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2005. Are Empowerment and Education Enough? Under-Diversification in 401(k) Plans. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2:151-98. 
  33. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2005. Passive Decisions and Potent Defaults. David Wise, editor. Analyses in the Economics of Aging. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 59-78. 
  34. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. 2005. Early Decisions: A Regulatory FrameworkSwedish Economic Policy Review 12(2): 41-60. 
  35. McClure, Samuel M., David Laibson, George Loewenstein and Jonathan D. Cohen. 2004. Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards.Science  (October): 306.
  36. Choi, James, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian. 2004. Plan Design and 401(k) Savings OutcomesNational Tax Journal 57(2):275-98.[Summarized in October 2004 NBER Digest.]
  37. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2004. For Better or For Worse: Default Effects and 401(k) Savings Behavior. David Wise,  editor. Perspectives in the Economics of Aging. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 81-121. [Summarized in April 2002 NBER Digest]
  38. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2004. Employee Investment Decisions about Company Stock. Olivia Mitchell and Steven Utkus, editors, Pension Design and Structure: New Lessons from Behavioral Finance.Oxford: Oxford University Press 121-36. 
  39. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick.  2003. Optimal DefaultsAmerican Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 93(May)180-85. 
  40. Gabaix, Xavier, and David Laibson. 2003. A new challenge for economics: the frame problem. I. Broca, and J. Carillo editors. Collected Essays in Psychology and Economics. Oxford University Press. 
  41. Laibson, David, Andrea Repetto and Jeremy Tobacman. 2003. A Debt Puzzle. Philippe Aghion, Roman Frydman, Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Woodford editors. Knowledge, Information, and Expectations in Modern Economics: In Honor of Edmund S. Phelps. Princeton: Princeton University Press 228-266. 
  42. Laibson, David. 2003. Intertemporal Decision MakingEncyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group: London. 
  43. Glaeser, Edward L., David Laibson, and Bruce Sacerdote. 2002. An Economic Approach to Social CapitalEconomic Journal.
  44. Harris, Christopher J., and David Laibson. 2002. Hyperbolic discounting and consumption. Mathias Dewatripont, Lars Peter Hansen, and StephenTurnovsky, editors. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications, Eighth World Congress (1)258-298. 
  45. Choi, James, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick. 2002. Defined Contribution Pensions: Plan Rules, Participant Decisions, and the Path of Least Resistance. James Poterba, editor. Tax Policy and the Economy (16) 67-114. [Summarized in April 2002 NBER Digest]
  46. Choi, James, David Laibson and Andrew Metrick. 2002. How does the Internet Affect Trading? Evidence from Investor Behavior in 401(k) PlansJournal of Financial Economics, 64(3):397-421. [Summarized in February 2001 NBER Digest]
  47. Gabaix, Xavier and David Laibson. 2002.  The 6D Bias and the Equity Premium PuzzleNBER Macroeconomics Annual (16):257-311. 
  48. Harris, Christopher, and David Laibson. 2001.  Dynamic Choices of Hyperbolic ConsumersEconometrica 69(4):935-57.
  49. Angeletos, George-Marios, David Laibson, Andrea Repetto, Jeremy Tobacman, and Stephen Weinberg. 2001. The Hyperbolic Consumption Model: Calibration, Simulation, and Empirical EvaluationJournal of Economic Perspectives (August) 47-68. [Reprinted in G. Loewenstein ed. volume onIntertemporal Choice, Russell Sage Foundation.] 
  50. Laibson, David. 2001. A Cue-Theory of ConsumptionQuarterly Journal of Economics, 66(1): 81-120.
  51. Gabaix, Xavier, and David Laibson. 2000. A Boundedly Rational Decision Algorithm.American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 90:433-8.
  52. Glaeser, Edward, David Laibson, Jose Scheinkman, and Christine Soutter. 2000. Measuring TrustQuarterly Journal of Economics 65: 811-46.
  53. Cropper, Maureen, and David Laibson. 1999. The Implications of Hyperbolic Discounting for Project Evaluation. John Weyant and Paul R. Portney, editors. Discounting and Intergenerational Equity. Washington: Resources for the Future. 
  54. Laibson David, Andrea Repetto and Jeremy Tobacman. 1998. Self-Control and Saving for RetirementBrookings Papers on Economic Activity 1: 91-196. [Reprinted in Social Security Reform: Financial and Political Issues in International Perspective , edited by Robin Brooks and Assaf Razin, Cambridge University Press, 2005.] 
  55. Laibson, David, and Richard Zeckhauser. 1998. Amos Tversky and the Ascent of Behavioral EconomicsJournal of Risk and Uncertainty 16:7-47. 
  56. Laibson, David. 1998. Life-cycle Consumption and Hyperbolic Discount FunctionsEuropean Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 42:861-71. 
  57. Laibson, David. 1997. Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic DiscountingQuarterly Journal of Economics 62(May):443-77. 
  58. Friedman, Benjamin M., and David Laibson. 1989. Economic Implications of Extraordinary Movements in Stock PricesBrookings Papers on Economic Activity (December) 137-72.

Unpublished work

Affiliation

Harvard University, Department of Economics

Co-authors

Glaeser, Edward P.

Ed Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves...

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