This paper focuses on two main issues. First, we find that, on average, households’ discount rates decline. This implies dynamically inconsistent preferences. Second, we calculate an indicator of the degree of dynamic inconsistency that may help us to understand how households overcome their self-control problems. We use a micro dataset containing households’ reports on the compensation for receiving hypothetical rewards with delays. We find that individuals with more severely dynamicly inconsistent preferences on average hold a statistically significantly lower share of their total wealth in checking accounts. A possible interpretation is that subjects use precommitment strategies to limit their temptation to consume immediately.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Tor Vergata University, CEIS in its series CEIS Research Paper with number
129.
Length: 18 pages Date of creation: 09 Sep 2008 Date of revision:
09 Sep 2008 Handle: RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:129
Contact details of provider: Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma Phone: +39062040234 Fax: +39062020687 Email: Web page: http://www.ceistorvergata.it More information through EDIRC
Order Information: Postal: CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma Email: Web: http://www.ceistorvergata.it
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Marcello Di Biagio).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 1999.
"Doing It Now or Later,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Did you know? You can import bibliographic info in various formats into you bibliographic tool, or just into your word processor. See under "publisher info" on each abstract page.