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By means of a laboratory experiment, we show that financially equivalent bal- ance sheet profiles may be perceived as non fungible in a controlled frictionless environment with no probabilistic attributes. We find that, contrary to standard consumer theory, a large majority of subjects have a bias in the perception of wealth: for a given net worth with values of assets and debt that are financially certain and risk-free, a greater asset-debt ratio implies greater perceived wealth. This bias in the perception of wealth is explained by low cognitive sophistication and great inattention. Moreover, biased subjects are less patient, less debt averse, more likely to increase spending out of unexpected gains and report greater propen- sities to consume. A standard optimal consumption choice model, enriched with a rational but inattentive agent `a la Gabaix (2014, 2019), aligns our key experimental findings.
