Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions

Michael Kuhn, Peter Kuhn and Marie Claire Villeval

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Abstract: Recent developments in economic theory model intertemporal choice decisions as problems of restraining one's natural impulse to consume today. We use interventions that have been shown in the psychology literature to affect impulse control to examine whether this is indeed the case for laboratory elicitations of time preference. In other words, is savings behavior affected by manipulations of willpower? Our results are mixed, with one widely used willpower-reducing intervention increasing subjects' savings, and with evidence of a substantial placebo effects with respect to another intervention based on sugared beverage consumption. Since all our treatment effects -which are substantial in magnitude- are driven by increases in the intertemporal substitution elasticity (i.e. greater sensitivity to high prices), we suspect that the primary mechanism behind them is an increase in subjects' attention to the decision, rather than their ability to resist the temptation to get money sooner.

Keywords: Time preferences; self-control; depletion; sucrose; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-neu
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00954539v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published in 2014

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Related works:
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
Working Paper: Self Control and Intertemporal Choice: Evidence from Glucose and Depletion Interventions (2014)
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