IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tut/cremwp/201320.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Couples Discount Future Consequences Less than Individuals?

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammed Abdellaoui

    (HEC-Paris & GREGHEC-CNRS, France)

  • Olivier l'Haridon

    (CREM CNRS UMR 6211, University of Rennes 1, France)

  • Corina Paraschiv

    (HEC-Paris & GREGHEC-CNRS, France)

Abstract

This paper examines couple time preferences by reporting the results of an ex- periment based on the elicitation of nearest equivalent values. Decisions involving delayed outcomes are studied for each of the two partners individually and for the couple. This allows for a direct comparison between couple behavior and individual partners’ behavior in choices over time. We use Fishburn and Rubinstein’s (1982) discounted utility model and infer measurements of utility and discounting at both the individual and the couple level. While utility is found to be similar for cou- ples and individuals, we observe that, in decision over time, couples discount future amounts of money less than individuals. This result suggests that making joint decisions significantly reduces revealed impatience. Moreover, we show that cou- ple time preferences cannot be considered as a mix of the individual preferences of each of the two partners. Taken together, these findings suggest that determinants of intertemporal decisions made by couples, such as financial decisions, should be considered as distinct from determinants of individual decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier l'Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2013. "Do Couples Discount Future Consequences Less than Individuals?," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes 1 & University of Caen) 201320, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes 1, University of Caen and CNRS.
    • Handle: RePEc:tut:cremwp:201320
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ged.univ-rennes1.fr/nuxeo/site/esupversions/1371af3d-c490-4c85-ab04-2c935d139260
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abi Adams & Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Ewout Verriest, 2014. "Consume Now or Later? Time Inconsistency, Collective Choice, and Revealed Preference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4147-4183, December.
    2. André Palma & Nathalie Picard & Anthony Ziegelmeyer, 2011. "Individual and couple decision behavior under risk: evidence on the dynamics of power balance," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 45-64, January.
    3. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Collective Investment Decision Making with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 9629, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. He, Haoran & Martinsson, Peter & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Group decision making under risk: An experiment with student couples," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 691-693.
    5. Kirsten Rohde, 2010. "The hyperbolic factor: A measure of time inconsistency," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 125-140, October.
    6. Manel Baucells & Rakesh Sarin, 2007. "Evaluating Time Streams of Income: Discounting What?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 95-120, September.
    7. Browning, Martin, 2000. " The Saving Behaviour of a Two-Person Household," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(2), pages 235-251, June.
    8. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    9. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier l’Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2013. "Individual vs. couple behavior: an experimental investigation of risk preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 175-191, August.
    10. Carlsson, Fredrik & He, Haoran & Martinsson, Peter & Qin, Ping & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Household decision making in rural China: Using experiments to estimate the influences of spouses," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 525-536.
    11. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    12. Mohammed Abdellaoui & ArthurE. Attema & Han Bleichrodt, 2010. "Intertemporal Tradeoffs for Gains and Losses: An Experimental Measurement of Discounted Utility," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(545), pages 845-866, June.
    13. Cochard, François & Couprie, Hélène & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2009. "Do Spouses Cooperate? And If Not: Why?," TSE Working Papers 09-134, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    14. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Kirsten I. M. Rohde & Peter P. Wakker, 2010. "Time-Tradeoff Sequences for Analyzing Discounting and Time Inconsistency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 2015-2030, November.
    15. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2009. "Opening the Black Box of Intrahousehold Decision Making: Theory and Nonparametric Empirical Tests of General Collective Consumption Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(6), pages 1074-1104, December.
    16. Fredrik Carlsson & Peter Martinsson & Ping Qin & Matthias Sutter, 2013. "The influence of spouses on household decision making under risk: an experiment in rural China," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 383-401, September.
    17. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1988. "Nash-Bargained Households Decisions: A Comment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 29(4), pages 791-796, November.
    18. Maurizio Mazzocco, 2007. "Household Intertemporal Behaviour: A Collective Characterization and a Test of Commitment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(3), pages 857-895.
    19. Takeuchi, Kan, 2011. "Non-parametric test of time consistency: Present bias and future bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 456-478, March.
    20. Ian Bateman & Alistair Munro, 2005. "An Experiment on Risky Choice Amongst Households," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(502), pages 176-189, March.
    21. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon, 2013. "Sign-dependence in intertemporal choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 225-253, December.
    22. Buchan, Nancy R. & Croson, Rachel T.A. & Solnick, Sara, 2008. "Trust and gender: An examination of behavior and beliefs in the Investment Game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 466-476, December.
    23. 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.
    24. Uri Benzion & Amnon Rapoport & Joseph Yagil, 1989. "Discount Rates Inferred from Decisions: An Experimental Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 270-284, March.
    25. Christine Kaufmann & Martin Weber & Emily Haisley, 2013. "The Role of Experience Sampling and Graphical Displays on One's Investment Risk Appetite," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 323-340, July.
    26. George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, 1992. "Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice: Evidence and an Interpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 573-597.
    27. Milch, Kerry F. & Weber, Elke U. & Appelt, Kirstin C. & Handgraaf, Michel J.J. & Krantz, David H., 2009. "From individual preference construction to group decisions: Framing effects and group processes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 242-255, March.
    28. Jane E. J. Ebert & Drazen Prelec, 2007. "The Fragility of Time: Time-Insensitivity and Valuation of the Near and Far Future," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(9), pages 1423-1438, September.
    29. Serdar Sayman & Ayse Öncüler, 2009. "An Investigation of Time Inconsistency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(3), pages 470-482, March.
    30. Paul A. Samuelson, 1937. "A Note on Measurement of Utility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 155-161.
    31. Hisaki Kono & Tomomi Tanaka, 2019. "Does marriage work as a savings commitment device? Experimental evidence from Vietnam," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, June.
    32. Bleichrodt, Han & Rohde, Kirsten I.M. & Wakker, Peter P., 2009. "Non-hyperbolic time inconsistency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 27-38, May.
    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. Hideo Akabayashi & Akiko Kamesaka & Ryosuke Nakamura & Masao Ogaki & Teruyuki Tamura, 2014. "An Experimental Study of Intergenerational Altruism with Parent-Child Pairs," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2014-005, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    2. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Enrico Diecidue & Olivier l’Haridon, 2017. "Patience and time consistency in collective decisions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 181-208, March.
    3. Giovanni Ponti & Ismael Rodríguez Lara & Daniela Di Cagno, 2014. "Doing it now or later with payoff externalities: Experimental evidence on social time preferences," Working Papers. Serie AD 2014-05, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    4. Alistair Munro, 2018. "Intra†Household Experiments: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 134-175, February.
    5. Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael & Ponti, Giovanni, 2017. "Social motives vs social influence: An experiment on interdependent time preferences," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 177-194.
    6. Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael & Ponti, Giovanni, 2017. "Social Motives vs Social Influence: an Experiment on Time Preferences," MPRA Paper 76486, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Rong, Rong & Gnagey, Matthew & Grijalva, Therese, 2018. "“The less you Discount, the more it shows you really care”: Interpersonal discounting in households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 1-23.

    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. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Enrico Diecidue & Olivier l’Haridon, 2017. "Patience and time consistency in collective decisions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 181-208, March.
    2. Carlsson, Fredrik & Yang, Xiaojun, 2013. "Intertemporal Choice Shifts in Households: Do they occur and are they good?," Working Papers in Economics 569, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    3. Shotaro Shiba & Kazumi Shimizu, 2018. "Does time inconsistency differ between gain and loss? An intra-personal comparison using a non-parametric elicitation method (A revised version)," Working Papers 1807, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    4. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon, 2013. "Sign-dependence in intertemporal choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 225-253, December.
    5. Shotaro Shiba & Kazumi Shimizu, 2017. "Does Time Inconsistency Differ between Gain and Loss? An Intra-Personal Comparison Using a Non-Parametric Designed Experimen," Working Papers 1714, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    6. Shotaro Shiba & Kazumi Shimizu, 2020. "Does time inconsistency differ between gain and loss? An intra-personal comparison using a non-parametric elicitation method," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(3), pages 431-452, April.
    7. Kirsten I. M. Rohde, 2019. "Measuring Decreasing and Increasing Impatience," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1700-1716, April.
    8. Venkataraghavan Krishnaswamy & Aseem Pahuja & R. P. Sundarraj, 2016. "Integrating Time-Preferences into E-Negotiation Systems: A Model, Elicitation Approach and Experimental Implications," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 1137-1167, November.
    9. Han Bleichrodt & Yu Gao & Kirsten I. M. Rohde, 2016. "A measurement of decreasing impatience for health and money," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 213-231, June.
    10. Rong, Rong & Gnagey, Matthew & Grijalva, Therese, 2018. "“The less you Discount, the more it shows you really care”: Interpersonal discounting in households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 1-23.
    11. Pavlo R. Blavatskyy & Hela Maafi, 2020. "A new test of convexity–concavity of discount function," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(2), pages 121-136, September.
    12. Daniel R. Cavagnaro & Gabriel J. Aranovich & Samuel M. McClure & Mark A. Pitt & Jay I. Myung, 2016. "On the functional form of temporal discounting: An optimized adaptive test," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 233-254, June.
    13. Anke Gerbe & Kirsten I.M. Rohde, 2010. "Risk and Preference Reversals in Intertemporal Choice," Post-Print hal-00911832, HAL.
    14. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Kirsten I. M. Rohde & Peter P. Wakker, 2010. "Time-Tradeoff Sequences for Analyzing Discounting and Time Inconsistency," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 2015-2030, November.
    15. Gerber, Anke & Rohde, Kirsten I.M., 2010. "Risk and preference reversals in intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 654-668, December.
    16. Epper, Thomas, 2015. "Income Expectations, Limited Liquidity, and Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice," Economics Working Paper Series 1519, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    17. Venkataraghavan Krishnaswamy & R. P. Sundarraj, 2019. "Impatience Characteristics in Cloud-Computing-Services Procurement: Effects of Delay Horizon and Situational Involvement," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 961-990, October.
    18. Robin Chark & Soo Chew & Songfa Zhong, 2015. "Extended present bias: a direct experimental test," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(1), pages 151-165, July.
    19. Craig S. Webb, 2019. "Trichotomic discounted utility," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 321-339, October.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Household decision-making; time preferences; hyperbolic discounting;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tut:cremwp:201320. 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: GERMAIN Lucie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/crmrefr.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.