Hysteresis in Addictive Consumption Depends on Time Preferences

Sophie Massin, Phu Nguyen-Van, Dimitri Dubois, Marc Willinger and Bruno Ventelou

No 2025-38, EconomiX Working Papers from University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX

Abstract: How can individuals who have experienced a shock in their addictive consumption trajectories return to their habitual use? As part of a behavioral economics online survey conducted on a representative sample of the French population, we asked respondents to retrospectively quantify their consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and recreational screen use at three moments: before, during, and after the first Covid-19 lockdown. Using a methodology that controls for inter-individual heterogeneity, we test for the presence of a hysteresis effect, i.e. whether the shocks in use that occurred during the lockdown last beyond the end of it and the return to a more normal life. We find persistent hysteresis for the three addictive goods. Studying this hysteresis effect in relation to time preferences, we find that, for tobacco, present-biased individuals exhibit more hysteresis. This hysteresis insight, related to time preferences, offers valuable perspectives for addiction research and policy design addressing population resilience to shocks.

Keywords: Addictive goods; hysteresis; panel data; time preferences; behavioral economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D90 I10 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:drm:wpaper:2025-38

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