Revealing Naïveté and Sophistication from Procrastination and Preproperation

David Freeman

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel way of distinguishing whether a person is naïve or sophisticated about their own dynamic inconsistency using only their task completion behaviour. I show that adding an extra opportunity to complete the task that goes unused can lead a naïve (but not a sophisticated) person to complete it even later, and can lead a sophisticated (but not a naïve) person to complete the task even earlier. These results provide the framework for revealing the preference and sophistication types studied in O’Donoghue and Rabin (1999) from behaviour in a generalization of their environment.

Keywords: sophistication; naïveté; procrastination; preproperation; task completion; present bias; time inconsistency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D84 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52
Date: 2016-10-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-exp and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Journal Article: Revealing Naïveté and Sophistication from Procrastination and Preproperation (2021)
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