IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/25232.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Arbitrage Or Narrow Bracketing? On Using Money to Measure Intertemporal Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • James Andreoni
  • Christina Gravert
  • Michael A. Kuhn
  • Silvia Saccardo
  • Yang Yang

Abstract

If experimental subjects arbitrage against market interest rates when making intertemporal allocations of cash, the data will reveal nothing about subjects' discount rates, only uncovering subjects' market interest rates. If they frame choices narrowly, market rates will not be salient and the experiment will uncover subjects' utility discount rates. We test arbitrage directly by forcing all transactions with subjects to be instant electronic bank transfers, thus making arbitrage easy and salient. We also employ four decision frames to test alternative hypotheses. Our evidence contradicts arbitrage, supports money as a valid reward, and suggests framing as a correlate with present bias.

Suggested Citation

  • James Andreoni & Christina Gravert & Michael A. Kuhn & Silvia Saccardo & Yang Yang, 2018. "Arbitrage Or Narrow Bracketing? On Using Money to Measure Intertemporal Preferences," NBER Working Papers 25232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25232
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w25232.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Andreoni & Michael Callen & Karrar Hussain & Muhammad Khan & Charles Sprenger, 2016. "Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan," Natural Field Experiments 00570, The Field Experiments Website.
    2. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    3. Aycinena, Diego & Blazsek, Szabolcs & Rentschler, Lucas & Sprenger, Charles, 2022. "Intertemporal choice experiments and large-stakes behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 484-500.
    4. Lei, Vivian & Noussair, Charles N & Plott, Charles R, 2001. "Nonspeculative Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets: Lack of Common Knowledge of Rationality vs. Actual Irrationality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 831-859, July.
    5. Robin Cubitt & Daniel Read, 2007. "Can intertemporal choice experiments elicit time preferences for consumption?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(4), pages 369-389, December.
    6. R. H. Strotz, 1955. "Myopia and Inconsistency in Dynamic Utility Maximization," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 165-180.
    7. Sophie Clot & Charlotte Y. Stanton & Marc Willinger, 2017. "Are impatient farmers more risk-averse? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Uganda," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 156-169, January.
    8. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2010. "Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 193-210, January.
    9. Glenn W. Harrison & Ronald M. Harstad & E. Elisabet Rutstr–m, 2004. "Experimental Methods and Elicitation of Values," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 7(2), pages 123-140, June.
    10. Charles Sprenger, 2015. "Judging Experimental Evidence on Dynamic Inconsistency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 280-285, May.
    11. Steffen Andersen & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2008. "Eliciting Risk and Time Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 583-618, May.
    12. Leandro S. Carvalho & Stephan Meier & Stephanie W. Wang, 2016. "Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 260-284, February.
    13. Christopher Chabris & David Laibson & Carrie Morris & Jonathon Schuldt & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2008. "Individual laboratory-measured discount rates predict field behavior," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 237-269, December.
    14. Kline Patrick & Santos Andres, 2012. "A Score Based Approach to Wild Bootstrap Inference," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 23-41, August.
    15. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    16. Ned Augenblick & Muriel Niederle & Charles Sprenger, 2015. "Editor's Choice Working over Time: Dynamic Inconsistency in Real Effort Tasks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 130(3), pages 1067-1115.
    17. 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.
    18. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    19. Reuben, Ernesto & Sapienza, Paola & Zingales, Luigi, 2010. "Time discounting for primary and monetary rewards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(2), pages 125-127, February.
    20. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & Melonie B. Williams, 2002. "Estimating Individual Discount Rates in Denmark: A Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1606-1617, December.
    21. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    22. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    23. Ubfal, Diego, 2016. "How general are time preferences? Eliciting good-specific discount rates," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 150-170.
    24. Jonathan Cohen & Keith Marzilli Ericson & David Laibson & John Myles White, 2020. "Measuring Time Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(2), pages 299-347, June.
    25. Loewenstein, George & Thaler, Richard H, 1989. "Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 181-193, Fall.
    26. Matthew Rabin & Georg Weizsacker, 2009. "Narrow Bracketing and Dominated Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1508-1543, September.
    27. Stefano DellaVigna, 2018. "Structural Behavioral Economics," NBER Working Papers 24797, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Matthew O. Jackson & Leeat Yariv, 2014. "Present Bias and Collective Dynamic Choice in the Lab," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4184-4204, December.
    29. Janssens, Wendy & Kramer, Berber & Swart, Lisette, 2017. "Be patient when measuring hyperbolic discounting: Stationarity, time consistency and time invariance in a field experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 77-90.
    30. Eli Tsukayama & Angela Lee Duckworth, 2010. "Domain-specific temporal discounting and temptation," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 5(2), pages 72-82, April.
    31. George F. Loewenstein, 1988. "Frames of Mind in Intertemporal Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 200-214, February.
    32. Andreoni, James & Kuhn, Michael A. & Sprenger, Charles, 2015. "Measuring time preferences: A comparison of experimental methods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 451-464.
    33. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    34. 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.
    35. Maribeth Coller & Melonie Williams, 1999. "Eliciting Individual Discount Rates," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 107-127, December.
    36. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    37. Paul A. Samuelson, 1937. "A Note on Measurement of Utility," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 155-161.
    38. Stephan Meier & Charles D. Sprenger, 2015. "Temporal Stability of Time Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 273-286, 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. Taisuke Imai & Tom A Rutter & Colin F Camerer, 2021. "Meta-Analysis of Present-Bias Estimation using Convex Time Budgets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1788-1814.
    2. Aycinena, Diego & Blazsek, Szabolcs & Rentschler, Lucas & Sprenger, Charles, 2022. "Intertemporal choice experiments and large-stakes behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 484-500.
    3. Thomas Epper & Ernst Fehr & Helga Fehr-Duda & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & David Dreyer Lassen & Søren Leth-Petersen & Gregers Nytoft Rasmussen, 2020. "Time Discounting and Wealth Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(4), pages 1177-1205, April.
    4. Michele Belot & Philipp Kircher & Paul Muller, 2021. "Eliciting time preferences when income and consumption vary: Theory, validation & application to job search," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-013/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    5. Stephen L. Cheung, 2020. "Eliciting utility curvature in time preference," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 493-525, June.
    6. Pavlo R. Blavatskyy, 2022. "Intertemporal choice as a tradeoff between cumulative payoff and average delay," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 64(1), pages 89-107, February.
    7. Benjamin Enke & Thomas W. Graeber, 2021. "Cognitive Uncertainty in Intertemporal Choice," CESifo Working Paper Series 9472, CESifo.
    8. Haushofer, Johannes & Jain, Prachi & Musau, Abednego & Ndetei, David, 2021. "Stress may increase choice of sooner outcomes, but not temporal discounting," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 377-396.
    9. Burro, Giovanni & McDonald, Rebecca & Read, Daniel & Taj, Umar, 2022. "Patience decreases with age for the poor but not for the rich: an international comparison," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 596-621.
    10. Shilpa Aggarwal & Rebecca Dizon-Ross & Ariel D. Zucker, 2020. "Incentivizing Behavioral Change: The Role of Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 27079, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Aggarwal, Shilpa & Dizon-Ross, Rebecca & Zucker, Ariel, 2020. "Incentivizing Behavioral Change: The Role of Time Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 14751, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. 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.
    2. Ubfal, Diego, 2016. "How general are time preferences? Eliciting good-specific discount rates," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 150-170.
    3. Backes-Gellner, Uschi & Herz, Holger & Kosfeld, Michael & Oswald, Yvonne, 2021. "Do preferences and biases predict life outcomes? Evidence from education and labor market entry decisions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Aycinena, Diego & Blazsek, Szabolcs & Rentschler, Lucas & Sprenger, Charles, 2022. "Intertemporal choice experiments and large-stakes behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 484-500.
    6. Janssens, Wendy & Kramer, Berber & Swart, Lisette, 2017. "Be patient when measuring hyperbolic discounting: Stationarity, time consistency and time invariance in a field experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 77-90.
    7. 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.
    8. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    9. Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, 2015. "Time Preferences and Bargaining," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series /2015/568, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    10. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2007. "Choice over Time," Working Papers 605, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    11. Pennesi, Daniele, 2021. "Intertemporal discrete choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 690-706.
    12. Taisuke Imai & Tom A Rutter & Colin F Camerer, 2021. "Meta-Analysis of Present-Bias Estimation using Convex Time Budgets," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1788-1814.
    13. Dániel Horn & Hubert János Kiss, 2020. "Time preferences and their life outcome correlates: Evidence from a representative survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, July.
    14. Andreoni, James & Callen, Michael & Hussain Jaffar, Karrar & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Sprenger, Charles, 2016. "Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 11137, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Jorrat, Diego & Espín, Antonio M. & Sanchez, Angel, 2020. "Paid and hypothetical time preferences are the same: Lab, field and online evidence," MPRA Paper 103660, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Felix Koelle & Lukas Wenner, 2018. "Present-Biased Generosity: Time Inconsistency across Individual and Social Contexts," Discussion Papers 2018-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    17. Ned Augenblick & Muriel Niederle & Charles Sprenger, 2013. "Working Over Time: Dynamic Inconsistency in Real Effort Tasks," NBER Working Papers 18734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Melanie Lührmann & Marta Serra-Garcia & Joachim Winter, 2018. "The Impact of Financial Education on Adolescents' Intertemporal Choices," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 309-332, August.
    19. Kureishi, Wataru & Paule-Paludkiewicz, Hannah & Tsujiyama, Hitoshi & Wakabayashi, Midori, 2021. "Time preferences over the life cycle and household saving puzzles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 123-139.
    20. 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

    JEL classification:

    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    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:nbr:nberwo:25232. 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: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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 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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.