IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2011_018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Time Preferences Differ: Evidence from 45 Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Mei

    () (WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management)

  • Rieger, Marc Oliver

    () (Dept. IV, Business Administration, University of Trier)

  • Hens, Thorsten

    () (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

Abstract

We present results from the first large-scale international survey on time discounting, conducted in 45 countries. Cross-country variation cannot simply be explained by economic variables such as interest rates or in ation. In particular, we find strong evidence for cultural differences, as measured by the Hofstede cultural dimensions. For example, high levels of Uncertainty Avoidance or Individualism are both associated with strong hyperbolic discounting. Moreover, as application of our data, we find evidence for an impact of time preferences on the capability of technological innovations in a country and on environmental protection.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2011. "How Time Preferences Differ: Evidence from 45 Countries," Discussion Papers 2011/18, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2011_018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/164166
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yesuf, Mahmud & Bluffstone, Randall, 2008. "Wealth and Time Preference in Rural Ethiopia," Discussion Papers dp-08-16-efd, Resources For the Future.
    2. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    3. Huang, Rocco R., 2007. "Distance and trade: Disentangling unfamiliarity effects and transport cost effects," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 161-181, January.
    4. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    5. E. S. Phelps & R. A. Pollak, 1968. "On Second-Best National Saving and Game-Equilibrium Growth," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 185-199.
    6. Mahajna, Ahmad & Benzion, Uri & Bogaire, Ravid & Shavit, Tal, 2008. "Subjective discount rates among Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2513-2522, December.
    7. Read, Daniel & Roelofsma, Peter H. M. P., 2003. "Subadditive versus hyperbolic discounting: A comparison of choice and matching," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 140-153, July.
    8. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Cross-country variation in time preference
      by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics on 2013-11-18 19:27:27
    2. Where do pro-social institutions come from?
      by pseudoerasmus in Pseudoerasmus on 2015-10-04 05:01:30

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Dohmen & Benjamin Enke & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2016. "Patience and the Wealth of Nations," Working Papers 2016-012, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    2. Guest, Ross, 2018. "Does compulsory superannuation disadvantage middle income earners?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 130-137.
    3. Stelter, Robert, 2014. "Over-aging: Are present human populations too old?," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 137, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    4. Fischer, Thomas, 2017. "Thomas Piketty and the rate of time preference," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 111-133.
    5. Havranek, Tomas & Horvath, Roman & Irsova, Zuzana & Rusnak, Marek, 2015. "Cross-country heterogeneity in intertemporal substitution," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 100-118.
    6. Falk, A. & Becker, A. & Dohmen, T.J. & Enke, B. & Huffman, D. & Sunde, U., 2015. "The nature and predictive power of preferences : global evidence," ROA Research Memorandum 012, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    7. Ken-Ichi Hirose & Shinsuke Ikeda, 2015. "Decreasing Marginal Impatience and Capital Accumulation in a Two-Country World Economy," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 474-507, July.
    8. Wu, Tian & Shang, Zhe & Tian, Xin & Wang, Shouyang, 2016. "How hyperbolic discounting preference affects Chinese consumers’ consumption choice between conventional and electric vehicles," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 400-413.
    9. Eduardo A. Cavallo & Tomás Serebrisky & Verónica Frisancho & Jonathan Karver & Andrew Powell & Diego Margot & Ancor Suárez-Alemán & Eduardo Fernández-Arias & Matías Marzani & Solange Berstein & Marian, 2016. "Saving for Development: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Save More and Better," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 94597 edited by Eduardo A. Cavallo & Tomás Serebrisky, February.
    10. Marc Oliver Rieger & Thorsten Hens & Mei Wang, 2013. "International Evidence on the Equity Premium Puzzle and Time Discounting," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 17(3-4), pages 149-163, September.
    11. Basu, Karna, 2014. "Commitment savings in informal banking markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 97-111.
    12. Cavallo, Eduardo A. & Serebrisky, Tomás & Frisancho, Verónica & Karver, Jonathan & Powell, Andrew & Margot, Diego & Suárez-Alemán, Ancor & Fernández-Arias, Eduardo & Marzani, Matías & Berstein, Solang, 2016. "Saving for Development: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Save More and Better," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 7677, December.
    13. van der Pol, Marjon & Walsh, David & McCartney, Gerry, 2015. "Comparing time and risk preferences across three post-industrial UK cities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 54-61.
    14. repec:spr:agfoec:v:1:y:2013:i:1:p:1-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Otto Lenhart, 2018. "More than just the Adoption of Western Capitalism? Time Use Changes in East Germany Following Reunification," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 306-328, September.
    16. Fryer, Roland G., 2016. "Information, non-financial incentives, and student achievement: Evidence from a text messaging experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 109-121.
    17. Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2019. "Demographic structures, savings, and international capital flows," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-1.

    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. Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2016. "How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 115-135.
    2. McDonald, R.L. & Chilton, S.M. & Jones-Lee, M.W. & Metcalf, H.R.T., 2017. "Evidence of variable discount rates and non-standard discounting in mortality risk valuation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 152-167.
    3. 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.
    4. Sorger, Gerhard, 2004. "Consistent planning under quasi-geometric discounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 118-129, September.
    5. al-Nowaihi, Ali & Dhami, Sanjit, 2006. "A note on the Loewenstein-Prelec theory of intertemporal choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 99-108, July.
    6. S. Dellavigna., 2011. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 4.
    7. Meyer, Andrew G., 2015. "The impacts of elicitation mechanism and reward size on estimated rates of time preference," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 132-148.
    8. Faralla, Valeria & Novarese, Marco & Ardizzone, Antonella, 2017. "Framing Effects in Intertemporal Choice: A Nudge Experiment," MPRA Paper 82086, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Andrew Meyer, 2013. "Estimating discount factors for public and private goods and testing competing discounting hypotheses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 133-173, April.
    10. Drouhin, Nicolas, 2020. "Non-stationary additive utility and time consistency," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-14.
    11. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality Within Three Dimensions [Face au risque, dans le temps, par rapport aux autres : langage et rationalité dans trois dimensions," Post-Print halshs-01651042, HAL.
    12. Toke Ward Petersen, 2001. "General Equilibrium Tax Policy with Hyperbolic Consumers," DREAM Working Paper Series 200101, Danish Rational Economic Agents Model, DREAM.
    13. Uttara Balakrishnan & Johannes Haushofer & Pamela Jakiela, 2020. "How soon is now? Evidence of present bias from convex time budget experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 294-321, June.
    14. Rubinstein, Ariel, 2001. "A theorist's view of experiments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 615-628, May.
    15. 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.
    16. Jean-Pierre Drugeon & Bertrand Wigniolle, 0. "On Markovian collective choice with heterogeneous quasi-hyperbolic discounting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 0, pages 1-40.
    17. Bernergård, Axel, 2011. "Folk Theorems for Present-Biased Players," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 736, Stockholm School of Economics.
    18. Marín-Solano, Jesús & Navas, Jorge, 2010. "Consumption and portfolio rules for time-inconsistent investors," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 201(3), pages 860-872, March.
    19. Zhao, Qian & Shen, Yang & Wei, Jiaqin, 2014. "Consumption–investment strategies with non-exponential discounting and logarithmic utility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 238(3), pages 824-835.
    20. Nir, A., 2004. "Cognitive Procedures and Hyperbolic Discounting," Other publications TiSEM e26d6ae0-fc76-4fb2-b845-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Time preferences; Intertemporal decision; Endogenous preference; Cross-cultural comparison;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • F40 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - General

    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:hhs:nhhfms:2011_018. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Stein Fossen). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.