IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v201y2021ics0165176520304808.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is time preference different across incomes and countries?

Author

Listed:
  • De Lipsis, Vincenzo

Abstract

We offer direct statistical evidence of existing differences in time preference across income classes and countries by estimating and testing an Euler equation for consumption on time series data for six European countries and five income quantiles. We unequivocally reject the hypothesis of homogeneous time preference across countries, whereas heterogeneity across income classes is confirmed to different degrees depending on the country, but with time preference being lowest for the last two quantiles of the income distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • De Lipsis, Vincenzo, 2021. "Is time preference different across incomes and countries?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:201:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304808
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109720
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520304808
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109720?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lahoti Rahul & Jayadev Arjun & Reddy Sanjay, 2016. "The Global Consumption and Income Project (GCIP): An Overview," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 61-108, June.
    2. Masao Ogaki & Andrew Atkeson, 1997. "Rate Of Time Preference, Intertemporal Elasticity Of Substitution, And Level Of Wealth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 564-572, November.
    3. Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2016. "How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 115-135.
    4. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David B. Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2017. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," NBER Working Papers 23943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Orazio P. Attanasio & Hamish Low, 2004. "Estimating Euler Equations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(2), pages 405-435, April.
    6. Samwick, Andrew A., 1998. "Discount rate heterogeneity and social security reform," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 117-146, October.
    7. Armin Falk & Anke Becker & Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2018. "Global Evidence on Economic Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1645-1692.
    8. Alastair R. Hall & Fernanda P. M. Peixe, 2003. "A Consistent Method for the Selection of Relevant Instruments," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 269-287, January.
    9. Jerry A. Hausman, 1979. "Individual Discount Rates and the Purchase and Utilization of Energy-Using Durables," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 33-54, Spring.
    10. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    11. Lawrance, Emily C, 1991. "Poverty and the Rate of Time Preference: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 54-77, February.
    12. Hall, Alastair R. & Inoue, Atsushi & Jana, Kalidas & Shin, Changmock, 2007. "Information in generalized method of moments estimation and entropy-based moment selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 488-512, June.
    13. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carneiro, Fernando Moraes & Turnovsky, Stephen J. & Tourinho, Octavio Augusto Fontes, 2022. "Economic growth and inequality tradeoffs under progressive taxation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kulati, Ellam & Myck, Michał & Pasini, Giacomo, 2023. "Temporal discounting in later life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 87-101.
    2. Burro, Giovanni & McDonald, Rebecca & Read, Daniel & Taj, Umar, 2022. "Patience decreases with age for the poor but not for the rich: an international comparison," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 596-621.
    3. Kureishi, Wataru & Paule-Paludkiewicz, Hannah & Tsujiyama, Hitoshi & Wakabayashi, Midori, 2020. "Time preferences over the life cycle," SAFE Working Paper Series 267, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2020.
    4. Dániel Horn & Hubert János Kiss, 2020. "Time preferences and their life outcome correlates: Evidence from a representative survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, July.
    5. Kukharskyy, Bohdan & Pflüger, Michael P., 2018. "Time Is on My Side: Relational Contracts and Aggregate Welfare," IZA Discussion Papers 11387, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Richard M. H. Suen, 2014. "Time Preference And The Distributions Of Wealth And Income," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 364-381, January.
    7. Kartik Athreya & José Mustre-del-Río & Juan M Sánchez, 2019. "The Persistence of Financial Distress," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3851-3883.
    8. Nieminen, Mika, 2022. "Cross-country variation in patience, persistent current account imbalances and the external wealth of nations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    9. Ken-Ichi Hirose & Shinsuke Ikeda, 2015. "Decreasing Marginal Impatience and Capital Accumulation in a Two-Country World Economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 474-507, July.
    10. Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Sutter, Matthias, 2021. "Collective intertemporal decisions and heterogeneity in groups," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 131-147.
    11. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    12. Jindrich Matousek & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova, 2022. "Individual discount rates: a meta-analysis of experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 318-358, February.
    13. Leandro Siqueira Carvalho, 2010. "Poverty and Time Preference," Working Papers 759, RAND Corporation.
    14. Pastore, Chiara & Schurer, Stefanie & Tymula, Agnieszka & Fuller, Nicholas & Caterson, Ian, 2020. "Economic Preferences and Obesity: Evidence from a Clinical Lab-in-Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 13915, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Marc Oliver Rieger & Mei Wang & Thorsten Hens, 2021. "Universal time preference," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-15, February.
    16. Tomáš Želinský, 2021. "Intertemporal Choices of Children and Adults from Poor Roma Communities: A Case Study from Slovakia," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(4), pages 378-405, July.
    17. Antoine Bozio & Guy Laroque & Cormac O’Dea, 2017. "Discount rate heterogeneity among older households: a puzzle?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 647-680, April.
    18. Rita Abdel Sater, 2021. "Essays on the application of behavioural insights to environmental policy [Essais sur l’application des connaissances comportementales aux politiques environnementales]," SciencePo Working papers tel-03450909, HAL.
    19. Marc Oliver Rieger & Mei Wang & Thorsten Hens, 2020. "Universal Time Preference," Working Paper Series 2020-07, University of Trier, Research Group Quantitative Finance and Risk Analysis.
    20. Iwasa, Kazumichi & Zhao, Laixun, 2020. "Inequality and catching-up under decreasing marginal impatience," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 99-110.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time preference; Discount rate; Euler equation; GMM testing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:201:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304808. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.