Eliciting time preferences when income and consumption vary: Theory, validation & application to job search

Michèle Belot, Philipp Kircher and Paul Muller
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Philipp Kircher: Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium

No 2021035, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: We propose a simple method for eliciting individual time preferences without estimating utility functions even in settings where background consumption changes over time. It relies on eliciting preferences for receiving high stakes lottery tickets at different points in time. In a standard intertemporal choice model high rewards decouple lottery choices from variation in background consumption. We validate our elicitation method experimentally on a student sample split into two groups: one asked in December when their current budget is reduced by extraordinary expenditures for Christmas gifts; the other asked in February when no such extra constraints exist. We illustrate an application of our method with unemployed job seekers which naturally have income/consumption variation.

Keywords: Time preferences; experimental elicitation; job search; hyperbolic discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2021-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-exp, nep-lab, nep-ore and nep-upt
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Related works:
Working Paper: Eliciting Time Preferences When Income and Consumption Vary: Theory, Validation & Application to Job Search (2021)
Working Paper: Eliciting time preferences when income and consumption vary: Theory, validation & application to job search (2021)
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