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Open research questions in Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

484 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 3,810 Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Empirical research to determine whether a factor of 40 is strong enough to establish calibration, - Research on the implications of REU being calibratable, - Investigation of alternative utility functions and risk functions

    A calibration theorem for risk-weighted expected utility theory · 2026 · DOI

  • Existing calibration results against REU rely on demanding and less realistic assumptions. The need for a calibration theorem that relies on less demanding and more realistic assumptions. The gap between REU's ability to resolve the Allais paradox and its susceptibility to a Rabin-style challenge.

    A calibration theorem for risk-weighted expected utility theory · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in understanding how preference parameters covary in the cross-section with one another and with household attributes. The paper notes that prior work has not fully explored the relationship between preference parameters and household characteristics.

    The Cross‐Section of Household Preferences · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research is needed to clarify whether such differences reflect pre-existing cognitive traits, consequences of substance use, or both, and to explore their potential relevance for intervention.

    Reduced planning depth and stronger probability discounting in alcohol and tobacco use disorder · 2026 · DOI

  • Background: Substance use disorders (SUDs) are associated with impaired goal-directed decision-making, but the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying these deficits remain unclear.

    Reduced planning depth and stronger probability discounting in alcohol and tobacco use disorder · 2026 · DOI

  • While previous research has revealed how these two strategies influence decision processes and outcomes, the interpersonal influences remain understudied.

    Interpersonal Effects of Using Selection or Elimination: People Are Less Willing to Interact With Elimination Strategy Users Than With Selection Strategy Users · 2026 · DOI

  • In discounting studies, properties of the delay are important, but understudied, methodological details.

    Effects of Opportunity Costs on Delay Discounting for Hypothetical Food and Money · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite their prevalence, little is known about how recurring payoff structures influence intertemporal preferences.

    Time Preference in Decisions With Recurring Payoffs · 2026 · DOI

  • Despite the two major theoretical approaches in adolescent economic risk‐taking—socioemotional theories and fuzzy‐trace theory—comparatively little is known about the role of incidental affective factors in economic risk‐taking.

    Determinants of Economic Risk Preferences Across Adolescence · 2025 · DOI

  • Research on the ratio bias has shown inconsistent results based on six major shortcomings which we surmount by replicating an identical experiment with students in Germany, Turkey, and Italy, with a physical, textual, and graphical depiction, and accounting for different levels of exposure to probabilities.

    Ratio Bias Across Cultures and Disciplines: How Academic Background Shapes Statistical Decision‐Making · 2025 · DOI

  • We propose that monetary priming could explain these mixed results, hypothesizing that it may not only increase cheating but also influence sensitivity to reward magnitude.

    Monetary Priming Reduces Children's Sensitivity to Variations in Potential Gain Magnitude in a Cheating Scenario · 2025 · DOI

  • However, the effect of description on mental representations of risk probability in the presence of experience has rarely been examined.

    Effects of Descriptive Information on Mental Representations of Probability and Future Behavior in the Context of Personal Experience · 2025 · DOI

  • The failure to identify choice shifts from social comparison state ments in the constant information environment suggests that the social comparison hypothesis is insufficient to spark opinion revision.

    Conservatism in Judgment: Is the Risky Shift-ee Really Risky, Really? · 1987 · DOI

  • The greatest limitation of this study is the failure to differentiate the social comparison hypothesis and the persuasive arguments explanation by effective manipulation of the independent variables.

    Explaining Choice Shift: A Comparison of Competing Effects-Coded Models · 1986 · DOI

  • Very few studies have task per- tasks than the task subjects who are using the best strategy to a strategy shift.

    Factors influencing the use of a decision rule in a probabilistic task · 1986 · DOI

  • Future research should investigate the effects of other situational stressors on cognitive biases in decision-making. Future research should also explore the implications of the findings for organizational practice and policy.

    Methodology for investigating moderating relationships in cognitive biases within workplace decision-making · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a critical conceptual gap regarding how cognitive biases operate dynamically within general organizational decision-making. Existing research on cognitive biases has predominantly treated biases as stable predictors of decision outcomes, overlooking the dynamic nature of decision-making under varying cognitive constraints.

    Methodology for investigating moderating relationships in cognitive biases within workplace decision-making · 2026 · DOI

  • The classical rational-agent assumption in strategic classification is limiting. Existing frameworks do not account for psychological mechanisms underlying strategic manipulation.

    Beyond Rational Illusion: Behaviorally Realistic Strategic Classification · 2026

  • The gap between knowledge and action, where simply being aware of behavioural finance concepts does not effectively mitigate the influence of biases. The lack of understanding of the relationships between key factors influencing investor behaviour.

    Behavioral Finance and Impact on Investor Decision Making · 2026 · DOI

  • The traditional finance theory has limitations in explaining systematic abnormalities caused by human psychology and cognitive constraints. There is a need for an integrated empirical model in the Indian context to understand the influence of behavioral finance factors on investment decision-making.

    BEHAVIORAL FINANCE AND INVESTMENT DECISION-MAKING: EVIDENCE FROM RETAIL INVESTORS IN INDIA · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need to consider the computation of measures of uncertainty and confidence intervals in choice modelling. There is a need to consider the importance of behavioural or policy significance in addition to statistical significance.

    Statistical significance in choice modelling: computation, usage and reporting · 2026 · DOI

  • The information search process is complex and difficult to model. The metalevel MDP framework has limitations that need to be addressed. The study's findings may not generalize to all decision-making scenarios.

    Ecologically enriched quantitative examination of the metalevel MDP in decision making · 2026 · DOI

  • The study has a limited number of participants. The experiment may not have been completed correctly for all 16 trials. The model has limitations that need to be addressed.

    Ecologically enriched quantitative examination of the metalevel MDP in decision making · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could investigate the use of cognitive ability measures in other experimental designs. Future research could also explore the implications of the findings for the design of experiments in economics and other social sciences.

    Adjusting Treatment Effects in Laboratory Experiments Using Cognitive Ability Measures: Evidence from the Dictator and Ultimatum Games with Adult Participants · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the understanding of the role of cognitive ability measures in improving treatment effect estimation in laboratory experiments. The study aims to address this gap by investigating the effect of cognitive ability measures on treatment effect estimation.

    Adjusting Treatment Effects in Laboratory Experiments Using Cognitive Ability Measures: Evidence from the Dictator and Ultimatum Games with Adult Participants · 2026 · DOI

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484 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 3,810 Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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