About

Ted O’Donoghue is the Zubrow Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at Cornell University. His research is primarily in the field of behavioral economics, a subfield of economics that incorporates insights from psychology and decision research into economics. Much of his research focuses on the domains of intertemporal choice and risky choice, and he has a strong interest in using behavioral economics to better understand economic field behaviors. O’Donoghue joined Cornell in 1997. He served as Senior Associate Dean for Social Science in the College of Arts & Sciences from 2015-2018, and he also served as Co-Chair of the Provost’s Review of the Social Sciences at Cornell from 2016-2018. From 2009-2012, he was team leader for a Cornell Institute for Social Sciences theme project titled “Judgment, Decision Making, and Social Behavior.” In 2009, O’Donoghue co-founded the Behavioral Economics Annual Meeting (BEAM) along with Nicholas Barberis (Yale) and Ulrike Malmendier (U.C. Berkeley). Our goal was to set up an annual conference where researchers in behavioral economics could gather to present and discuss their latest ideas. The event takes place in May and its location cycles between U.C. Berkeley, Cornell, and Yale. Every year, the event attracts about 100 of the most active researchers in the field. O’Donoghue holds degrees from Dartmouth (A.B. in Economics modified with Psychology, 1990) and the University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D. in Economics, 1996). He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Northwestern for one year before joining the faculty at Cornell.

Research topics

• Economics
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Business
• Computer Security
• Public economics
• Microeconomics
• Medicine
• Economic growth
• Engineering
• Econometrics
• Psychology
• Demographic economics
• Socioeconomics

Selected publications

• A Comprehensive Analysis of the Subproportionality and Risk-Tolerance/Risk-Aversion Properties

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2025-04-03

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• A Comprehensive Analysis of the Subproportionality and Risk-Tolerance/Risk-Aversion Properties

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2025-04-03

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Exploring Ambiguity Attitudes Across the Parameter Space in a Generalized Ellsberg Three-Color Problem

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-11-25

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Distinguishing Common Ratio Preferences from Common Ratio Effects Using Paired Valuation Tasks

  American Economic Review · 2024 · 20 citations

  • Economics
  • Econometrics

  Without strong assumptions about how noise manifests in choices, we can infer little from existing empirical observations of the common ratio effect (CRE) about whether there exists an underlying common ratio preference (CRP). We propose to solve this inferential challenge using paired valuations, which yield valid inference under common assumptions. Using this approach in an online experiment with 900 participants, we find no evidence of a systematic CRP. To reconcile our findings with existing evidence, we present the same participants with paired choice tasks and demonstrate how noise can generate a CRE even for individuals without an associated CRP. (JEL C91, D81, D91)

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring Ambiguity Attitudes Across the Parameter Space in a Generalized Ellsberg Three-Color Problem

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-11-25

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Exploring Ambiguity Attitudes Across the Parameter Space in a Generalized Ellsberg Three-Color Problem

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2024-11-25

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Reminders Work, but for Whom? Evidence from New York City Parking Ticket Recipients

  American Economic Journal Economic Policy · 2022 · 17 citations

  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Security

  We investigate heterogeneity in responsiveness to reminder letters among New York City parking ticket recipients. Using variation in the timing of letters, we find a strong aggregate response. But we find large differences across individuals: those with a low baseline propensity to respond to tickets—a natural nudge target—react least to letters. These low-response types, who incur significant late penalties, disproportionately come from already disadvantaged groups. They do react strongly to traditional, incentive-based interventions. We discuss how accounting for response heterogeneity might change one’s approach to policy and how one might use our analysis to target interventions at low-response types. (JEL D04, D12, D91, H71)

  PublisherDOI

• Paying More for Less: Why Don't Households in Tanzania Take Advantage of Bulk Discounts?

  World Bank, Washington, DC eBooks · 2020

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Economics
  • Socioeconomics

  Do poor households shop in a way that leaves money on the table? A simple way to maximize consumption, conditional on available cash, is to avoid regularly purchasing small amounts of nonperishable goods when bulk discounts are available at modestly larger quantities. Using two-week transaction diaries covering 48,501 purchases by 1,493 households in Tanzania, this paper finds that through bulk purchasing the average household could spend 8.7 percent less without reducing purchasing quantities. Several explanations for this pattern are investigated, and the most likely mechanisms are found to be worries about over-consumption of stocks and avoidance of social taxation. Contrary to prior work, there is little indication that liquidity constraints prevent poorer households in the sample from buying in bulk, possibly because the bulk quantities under examination are not very large.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Paying More for Less: Why Don’t Households in Tanzania Take Advantage of Bulk Discounts?

  2020-01-01

  bookOpen accessSenior author

  Do poor households shop in a way that leaves money on the table? A simple way to maximize consumption, conditional on available cash, is to avoid regularly purchasing small amounts of nonperishable goods when bulk discounts are available at modestly larger quantities. Using two-week transaction diaries covering 48,501 purchases by 1,493 households in Tanzania, this article finds that through bulk purchasing the average household could spend 8.7 percent less without reducing purchasing quantities. Several explanations for this pattern are investigated, and the most likely mechanisms are found to be worries about over-consumption of stocks and avoidance of social taxation. Contrary to prior work, there is little indication that liquidity constraints prevent poorer households in the sample from buying in bulk, possibly because the bulk quantities under examination are not very large.

  PublisherDOI

• Paying More for Less: Why Don’t Households in Tanzania Take Advantage of Bulk Discounts?

  The World Bank Economic Review · 2019-05-20 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract Do poor households shop in a way that leaves money on the table? A simple way to maximize consumption, conditional on available cash, is to avoid regularly purchasing small amounts of nonperishable goods when bulk discounts are available at modestly larger quantities. Using two-week transaction diaries covering 48,501 purchases by 1,493 households in Tanzania, this article finds that through bulk purchasing the average household could spend 8.7 percent less without reducing purchasing quantities. Several explanations for this pattern are investigated, and the most likely mechanisms are found to be worries about over-consumption of stocks and avoidance of social taxation. Contrary to prior work, there is little indication that liquidity constraints prevent poorer households in the sample from buying in bulk, possibly because the bulk quantities under examination are not very large.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Joachim De Weerdt

  KU Leuven

  43 shared

• Brian Dillon

  Cornell University

  40 shared

• Matthew Rabin

  Harvard University

  37 shared

• George Loewenstein

  19 shared

• Ori Heffetz

  10 shared

• Levon Barseghyan

  Cornell University

  9 shared

• Joshua C. Teitelbaum

  8 shared

• Francesca Molinari

  Cornell University

  8 shared