IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2007-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hyperbolic discounting and uniform savings floors

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin A. Malin

Abstract

Previous research suggests that, in partial equilibrium, individuals whose decision-making exhibits a present-bias--such as hyperbolic discounters who tend to over-consume--will be in favor of having a floor imposed on their savings. In this paper, I show it is quite difficult for the introduction of a savings floor to be Pareto-improving in general equilibrium. Indeed, a necessary condition for the floor to be Pareto-improving is that it is high enough to be binding for all individuals. Even in that case, because the equilibrium interest rate is affected by the level of the savings floor, some individuals may prefer to commit to a future time path of consumption by facing a high interest rate (and no floor) rather than a high floor.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin A. Malin, 2007. "Hyperbolic discounting and uniform savings floors," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-59, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2007-59
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2007/200759/200759abs.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2007/200759/200759pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David I. Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 1998. "Self-Control and Saving for Retirement," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 91-196.
    2. Bernheim, B. Douglas, 2002. "Taxation and saving," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1173-1249, Elsevier.
    3. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 2001. "Choice, Chance, and Wealth Dispersion at Retirement," NBER Chapters, in: Aging Issues in the United States and Japan, pages 25-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & John Leahy & Tom Tyler, 2004. "Measuring Self-Control," NBER Working Papers 10514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Agarwal, Sumit & Chomsisengphet, Souphala & Liu, Chunlin & Souleles, Nicholas S., 2005. "Do consumers choose the right credit contracts?," CFS Working Paper Series 2005/32, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    6. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    7. Manuel Amador & Iván Werning & George-Marios Angeletos, 2006. "Commitment vs. Flexibility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 365-396, March.
    8. Malin, Benjamin A., 2008. "Hyperbolic discounting and uniform savings floors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1986-2002, October.
    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. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya, 2021. "Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 115-149, February.
    2. Marcelo Arbex & Enlinson Mattos, 2017. "Optimal Paternalistic Health and Human Capital Policies," Working Papers 1709, University of Windsor, Department of Economics.
    3. Dan Anderberg & Helmut Rainer & Kerstin Roeder, 2016. "Family-Specific Investments and Divorce: A Theory of Dynamically Inconsistent Household Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 5996, CESifo.
    4. Malin, Benjamin A., 2008. "Hyperbolic discounting and uniform savings floors," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1986-2002, October.
    5. Makoto Nakajima, 2012. "Rising indebtedness and temptation: A welfare analysis," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), pages 257-288, July.
    6. Nakajima, Makoto, 2017. "Assessing bankruptcy reform in a model with temptation and equilibrium default," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 42-64.
    7. Anderberg, Dan & Rainer, Helmut & Roeder, Kerstin, 2018. "Family-specific investments and divorce with dynamically inconsistent households: Marital contracts and policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 199-225.
    8. Makoto Nakajima, 2013. "A tale of two commitments: equilibrium default and temptation," Working Papers 14-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    9. Arbex, Marcelo & Mattos, Enlinson, 2019. "Optimal paternalistic health and human capital subsidy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 39-42.
    10. Christos Kotsogiannis & Robert Schwager, 2022. "Present bias and externalities: Can government intervention raise welfare?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 1480-1506, August.

    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. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya, 2021. "Why mandate young borrowers to contribute to their retirement accounts?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 115-149, February.
    2. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu, 2005. "Temptation and Self-Control: Some Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," 2005 Meeting Papers 770, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Annamaria Lusardi, 2000. "Explaining Why So Many Households Do Not Save," Working Papers 0001, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    4. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. John Beshears & James J. Choi & Joshua Hurwitz & David Laibson & Brigitte C. Madrian, 2015. "Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 420-425, May.
    6. David K. Backus & Bryan R. Routledge & Stanley E. Zin, 2005. "Exotic Preferences for Macroeconomists," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 319-414, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. S. Nageeb Ali, 2011. "Learning Self-Control," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 857-893.
    8. Kevin X.D. Huang & Zheng Liu & John Qi Zhu, 2015. "Temptation and Self‐Control: Some Evidence and Applications," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(4), pages 581-615, June.
    9. Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Matthew Weinberg, 2009. "Heterogeneity in Intra-monthly Consumption Patterns, Self-Control, and Savings at Retirement," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 163-189, August.
    10. Ted O’Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "Incentives and Self Control," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001262, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Christian Moser & Pedro Olea de Souza e Silva, 2019. "Optimal Paternalistic Savings Policies," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 17, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    12. Patricia Sourdin, 2005. "Pension Contribution as a Commitment Device: Evidence of Sophistication among Time-inconsistent Households," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2005-17, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    13. John Y. Campbell, 2016. "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 1-30, May.
    14. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    15. Bryan, Gharad & Karlan, Dean & Nelson, Scott, 2009. "Commitment Contracts," Working Papers 73, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    16. Laureti, Carolina & Szafarz, Ariane, 2023. "Banking regulation and costless commitment contracts for time-inconsistent agents," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    17. François Gerard & Joana Naritomi, 2021. "Job Displacement Insurance and (the Lack of) Consumption-Smoothing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(3), pages 899-942, March.
    18. Uri Ben-Zion & Jan Pieter Krahnen & TAL SHAVIT, 2007. "Subjective Evaluation Of Delayed Risky Outcomes: An Experimental Approach," Working Papers 0709, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    19. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    20. Groneck, Max & Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2016. "A life-cycle model with ambiguous survival beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 137-180.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Saving and investment;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:fip:fedgfe:2007-59. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    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.