IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01490682.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decreasing term structure of psychological discount rates: Experimental estimation and determinants

Author

Listed:
  • Hubert de La Bruslerie

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Many empirical and behavioral studies identify a decreasing slope in the term structure of subjective discount rates. Using an experimental methodology based on "free-time" relative comparisons, this paper aims to identify in individual behaviors whether agents see their psychological value of time as decreasing or not. We elicit the negative shape of the subjective discount rates. They can be parameterized using two variables, one specifying the instantaneous time preference and the other characterizing the slope of the term structure. A trade-off law is identified between these two parameters. We show that the term structure of psychological rates depends strongly on gender, but appears not to be linked with life expectancy. We also question the cross-relationship between risk aversion and time preference. From a theoretical point of view, these two variables stand as two different and independent dimensions. However, empirically, the time preference attitude seems to be directly influenced by the risk attitude.

Suggested Citation

  • Hubert de La Bruslerie, 2015. "Decreasing term structure of psychological discount rates: Experimental estimation and determinants," Post-Print hal-01490682, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01490682
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2015.02.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    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. OUATTARA, Aboudou & DE LA BRUSLERIE, Hubert, 2015. "The term structure of psychological discount rate: characteristics and functional forms," MPRA Paper 75111, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hyperbolic discounting; Time preference; Behavioral economics; Psychological time value; Risk aversion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

    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:hal:journl:hal-01490682. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.