IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/eee/expchp/7-98.html

Intertemporal Choice under Habit Formation

In: Handbook of Experimental Economics Results

Author

Listed:
  • Fehr, Ernst
  • Zych, Peter K.

Abstract

Many of the most important choices in people's lives have an inter-temporal dimension, i.e., these choices are associated with a flow of benefits or costs that accrue in the future. In addition, such choices are frequently habit-forming. Yet, little is known about habit-forming inter-temporal choice behavior. This paper reports the results of an inter-temporal choice experiment with habit-formation. Subjects' choices deviate systematically from individually optimal decisions in the direction of over-consumption. This over-consumption is partly driven by loss avoidance, comparable to a real life situation in which addicted people consume addictive substances only in order to overpower withdrawal symptoms. Our results thus reject the theory of rational addiction.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Fehr, Ernst & Zych, Peter K., 2008. "Intertemporal Choice under Habit Formation," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 98, pages 923-928, Elsevier.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:expchp:7-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B7P5N-4SYS65G-3Y/2/e1aca7ca187ce2353cfe0f2d9d36eab0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Carbone, Enrica & Duffy, John, 2014. "Lifecycle consumption plans, social learning and external habits: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 413-427.
    2. Schenk-Hoppe, Klaus Reiner & Schmalfu[ss], Bjorn, 2001. "Random fixed points in a stochastic Solow growth model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 19-30, September.
    3. Helmuth Cremer & Philippe De Donder & Darío Maldonado & Pierre Pestieau, 2008. "Habit Formation and Labor Supply," CESifo Working Paper Series 2351, CESifo.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Lorenz Goette, 2000. "How Robust are Nominal Wage Rigidities?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0071, Econometric Society.
    5. Cremer Helmuth & De Donder Philippe & Maldonado Dario & Pestieau Pierre, 2010. "Commodity Taxation under Habit Formation and Myopia," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods

    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:expchp:7-98. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780444826428 .

    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.