Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics: Exploring Violations of Normative Theory Across Domains

This dissertation gathers three experimental essays in behavioral economics on choice under risk and uncertainty, unified by the goal of documenting and explaining systematic departures from normative theory in individual and organizational contexts. Chapter 1 combines the Agranov–Ortoleva design with mousetracking to study the nature of stochastic choice across distant and sequential repetitions. I replicate the high incidence of stochastic choice—including in tasks with first-order stochastic dominance—and show that process dynamics differ sharply across conditions: distant repetitions are better captured by a Drift Diffusion Model, whereas sequential repetitions align with a more deliberate “cautious stochastic choice.” The area under the trajectory (AUC) declines markedly only in sequential settings and predicts randomization, highlighting the informational value of process data beyond response times. Chapter 2 measures labor supply elasticity in the platform economy by integrating survey measures, a real-effort module, and administrative data from online gig work. Elasticity estimates are positive and often close to unity, while income effects are weak or negligible even among stated earners with income targets. Instead, malleable reference points emerge: losses relative to expectations loom larger than symmetric gains, and exogenous anchors shift those expectations. Self-report errors are associated with negative deviations from expected wages. Chapter 3 examines how intertemporal frames at the board level shape new product development (NPD) portfolio selection when projects have equal expected value. In an experiment with NPD professionals, framing substantially shifts allocations (a tilt toward short-horizon products under a short-term frame), while attention patterns move little. Individual traits (e.g., Honesty–Humility, Agreeableness) moderate the effects, and loss aversion is horizon-dependent. Taken together, the three studies show that economic choice departs from expected rationality in predictable ways: through deliberate randomization vs. cognitive limits, reference dependence and anchoring in labor supply, and strategic framing in managerial decisions. Methodologically, the work integrates process tracing (AUC/RT), credible experimental variation, and professional samples to offer a unified view of violations of normative theory and their applied levers.