Skipping your workout, again? Measuring and understanding time inconsistency in physical activity

Diarmaid Ó Ceallaigh, Kirsten I.M. Rohde and Hans van Kippersluis
Additional contact information
Diarmaid Ó Ceallaigh: Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin
Kirsten I.M. Rohde: Erasmus University Rotterdam and Maastricht University
Hans van Kippersluis: Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 24-028/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: Anecdotally, physical activity appears to be a textbook example of time in- consistency, which is the failure to follow through on ex-ante preferences and plans. Interestingly, our longitudinal survey finds that, over a fort- night, exercising more than preferred/planned is actually more prevalent than exercising less. However, over time a majority of our sample exercise less than preferred/planned in at least one of two consecutive fortnights. We find little evidence that time inconsistency is associated with present bias, its most popular explanation in economics. We find instead that it is associated with time-varying affective psychological processes such as willpower and temptations.

JEL-codes: C21 D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-04-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/24028.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().