American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
A Measure of Behavioral Heterogeneity
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 1–21)
Abstract
In this paper, we propose a novel way to measure behavioral heterogeneity in a population of stochastic individuals. Our measure is choice-based; it evaluates the probability that, over a randomly selected menu, the sampled choices of two sampled individuals differ. We provide axiomatic foundations for this measure and a decomposition result that separates heterogeneity into its intrapersonal and interpersonal components.Citation
Apesteguia, Jose, and Miguel A. Ballester. 2026. "A Measure of Behavioral Heterogeneity." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 18 (2): 1–21. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20240239Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D01 Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
- D11 Consumer Economics: Theory
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making