Universal Time Preference

Marc Oliver Rieger, Thorsten Hens and Mei Wang
Additional contact information
Marc Oliver Rieger: University of Trier
Thorsten Hens: University of Zurich - Department of Banking and Finance; Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH); Swiss Finance Institute
Mei Wang: WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management

No 21-53, Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series from Swiss Finance Institute

Abstract: Time preferences are central to human decision making; therefore, a thorough understanding of their international differences is highly relevant. Previous measurements, however, vary widely in their methodology, from questions answered on the Likert scale to lottery-type questions. We show that these different measurements correlate to a large degree and that they have a common factor that can predict a broad spectrum of variables: the countries’ credit ratings, their innovation, gas prices (as a proxy for environmental protection), body mass index (as a proxy for health consciousness), and average years of school attendance. The resulting data on this time preference factor for N=117 countries and regions will be highly useful for further research. Our aggregation method is applicable to merge cross-cultural studies that measure the same latent construct with different methodologies.

Keywords: time; preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-isf
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2153

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