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Open research questions in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

546 gap statements mined from Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,904 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • It identifies the issue of dimension reduction from infinity to a finite number K. The study also notes the need to define the population mean and covariances of the random function X(s).

    Do professionals’ inflation forecasts incorporate the beliefs of others? A functional data approach · 2026 · DOI

  • The gap is that it remained unclear whether the observed risk-seeking and suboptimal behaviors arise solely from motor variability or also occur in economic decision-making. The study aims to fill this gap by exploring decision-making under different sources of variance.

    Human motor and economic decisions show common risk-seeking bias under asymmetric gains · 2026 · DOI

  • The study does not provide a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms linking war exposure to subsequent risk attitudes and behaviors. The study's sample is limited to adult males in Turkey. The study does not account for potential confounding variables.

    Identifying the impact of exposure to armed conflict on individual preferences and field behavior: Evidence from Turkish draft Veterans · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of suitable natural experiments with access to representative data. The difficulty of separating the impact of exposure to armed violence from macroenvironmental effects of conflict. The need for more robust evidence on the explanatory mechanisms linking war exposure to subsequent risk attitudes and behaviors.

    Identifying the impact of exposure to armed conflict on individual preferences and field behavior: Evidence from Turkish draft Veterans · 2026 · DOI

  • Our findings support the use of incentivized methods as the first option and hypothetical methods as the second option Further research is needed to confirm their robustness across different contexts This study investigates the validity of various risk preference elicitation methods among farmers in rural Vietnam by conducting a field survey and experiment.

    Convergent and external validity of risk preferences elicitation methods: Evidence from Vietnam · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite its prevalence, the model’s connection to established economic theories of choice under risk, such as expected utility theory and prospect theory, remains poorly understood.

    Probability discounting and economic theories of choice under risk: a translation and critique · 2026 · DOI

  • While task contextualization is meant to bridge this gap, its application to risk and especially uncertainty elicitation remains underexplored in developing countries.

    Experimental Contextualization and External Validity of Farmers’ Risk and Uncertainty Preferences · 2026 · DOI

  • While substantial work has focused on optimizing when models should abstain, little is known about how users respond to systems that abstain.

    The Differential Effects of AI Abstention on Advice Acceptance · 2026

  • Public officials are traditionally thought to be more risk-averse than private sector employees, yet consistent empirical evidence is lacking.

    Are public officials more risk-averse than private sector employees in decision-making? Interest and accountability matter · 2026 · DOI

  • However, the cognitive and neural underpinnings of such self-other shifts in risk preference-and the mechanisms driving individual differences-remain unclear.

    Decision for self and other modulates risk attitude and electrophysiological processing: evidence from a behavioral and electrophysiological experiment · 2026 · DOI

  • The results demonstrate that nudging through digital channels alone is insufficient to drive large-scale adoption of digital receipts.

    Enhancing sustainable consumer behaviour through Nudging: Insights from a field experiment on adoption of electronic receipts · 2025 · DOI

  • Using this empirical basis, we developed an inventory consisting of 100 unique real-life choices to address open questions regarding the structure, life domains, and stability of the current ecology of risk.

    Mapping the Ecology of Risk: 100 Risky Choices of Modern Life · 2025 · DOI

  • Although null findings are inconsistent with the notion that information avoidance is maladaptive (at least in the short term), future research may explicate the consequences of information avoidance.

    Examining the day‐to‐day antecedents and consequences of information avoidance: A daily diary study · 2025 · DOI

  • Numerous cross-sectional, lab-based empirical studies have found that people avoid information to avoid negative future emotions or when lacking coping resources; however, no studies have explored the day-to-day temporal dynamics of information avoidance.

    Examining the day‐to‐day antecedents and consequences of information avoidance: A daily diary study · 2025 · DOI

  • There is no consensus on how to infer welfare from inconsistent choices.

    Inferring welfare from inconsistent choices: how values matter · 2025 · DOI

  • In further research, other person-independent factors that may influence anchoring strength should be investigated to develop theories that can explain the psychological mechanisms behind anchoring.

    Testing the reliability of anchoring susceptibility scores · 2025 · DOI

  • We emphasize the need for further research into biases and debiasing mechanisms to advance budget decision‐making.

    Understanding Micro‐Level Budgeting Behavior: How Cognitive Biases Shape Politicians' Budget Preferences · 2025 · DOI

  • Decades of research emphasized collective behaviors in public budgeting, yet individual budget preferences remain underexplored.

    Understanding Micro‐Level Budgeting Behavior: How Cognitive Biases Shape Politicians' Budget Preferences · 2025 · DOI

  • We examine two of these likely determinants that remain under-researched: The first is the effect that the length of possession may have on the EE.

    The endowment effect with different possession times and types of items · 2024 · DOI

  • Although such under- and overconfidence relate to fundamental life outcomes, a computational account specifying the underlying mechanisms is currently lacking.

    Manipulating Prior Beliefs Causally Induces Under- and Overconfidence · 2024 · DOI

  • The study expects FDA to be useful more widely when analyzing survey expectations data. The study suggests that FDA can be applied to other survey expectations data.

    Do professionals’ inflation forecasts incorporate the beliefs of others? A functional data approach · 2026 · DOI

  • The data did not adhere to a normal distribution. The number of formal trials for the present experiments was limited to 'about 6-10 gambling pairs' to avoid fatigue effects. The study only investigated the representation formats of the alternative options' probability for decisions from description and decisions from experience in low and medium-to-large probability situations.

    Probabilistic Representation Differences between Decisions from Description and Decisions from Experience · 2024 · DOI

  • Investigate the representation formats of the alternative options' probability for decisions from description and decisions from experience in different probability situations. Examine the effect of different information presentation formats on the representation of probability information. Explore the underlying cognitive processes of DFD and DFE.

    Probabilistic Representation Differences between Decisions from Description and Decisions from Experience · 2024 · DOI

  • Testosterone is commonly associated with risk-taking, yet empirical evidence remains mixed.

    Testosterone is associated with affective feedback processing in ambiguous decision-making · 2026 · DOI

  • However, little is known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying tourists’ trip choices; both physical and digital cues and shortcuts…

    Phygital Heuristics in Tourists’ Decision-Making in Motion · 2025 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) The gap is that it remained unclear whether the observed risk-seeking and suboptimal behaviors arise solely from motor variability or also occur in economic decision-making (“Human motor and economic decisions show common risk-seeking bias under…”, 2026); (2) The lack of suitable natural experiments with access to representative data (“Identifying the impact of exposure to armed conflict on individual preferences…”, 2026); (3) Despite its prevalence, the model’s connection to established economic theories of choice under risk, such as expected utility theory and prospect theory, remains poorly understood (“Probability discounting and economic theories of choice under risk: a…”, 2026); (4) While task contextualization is meant to bridge this gap, its application to risk and especially uncertainty elicitation remains underexplored in developing countries (“Experimental Contextualization and External Validity of Farmers’ Risk and…”, 2026); (5) Public officials are traditionally thought to be more risk-averse than private sector employees, yet consistent empirical evidence is lacking (“Are public officials more risk-averse than private sector employees in…”, 2026). 546 gap statements have been mined from Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 4,904 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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