Prof. Stefano Della Vigna

Wealth Inequality

A primary focus of Stefano DellaVigna’s current work is the 2Behavioral Inequality” project. While traditional models of wealth inequality often assume fully optimizing households, this research quantifies how specific decision-making frictions – such as suboptimal 401(k) participation, high mutual fund fees, and failures to refinance mortgages – disproportionately impact different income groups. By incorporating 17 distinct frictions into a structural life-cycle model, the project aims to determine the aggregate importance of these “behavioral frictions” in accounting for the high levels of wealth inequality observed in the United States and other developed economies.

Additionally, Mr. DellaVigna is currently working on a paper documenting initial findings from the Social Science Prediction Platform (SSPP). Analyzing over 50,000 forecasts across 100 projects, this paper examines the accuracy of researchers’ priors regarding scientific findings. The study documents that while forecasters often overestimate treatment effects, their average predictions are highly informative and can be optimized through “shrinkage” and expert weighting. This work advocates for the systematic collection of forecasts to improve experimental design, mitigate publication bias, and clarify the incremental contribution of new research to the broader scientific consensus.

Stefano DellaVigna is the Daniel E. Koshland, Sr. Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the UCB faculty in 2002, after receiving his PhD from Harvard University. He is a co-director of the Initiative for Behavioral Economics and Finance and he is also a co-PI of the Social Science Prediction Platform. He is also a Fellow of the CESifo Research Network. He has published in international journals such as the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Labor Economics.