Revealing Naïveté and Sophistication from Procrastination and Preproperation

David Freeman

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2021, vol. 13, issue 2, 402-38

Abstract: This paper proposes a novel way of distinguishing whether a person is naive or sophisticated about her own dynamic inconsistency using only her task-completion behavior. It shows that adding an unused extra opportunity to complete a task can lead a naïve (but not a sophisticated) person to complete it later and can lead a sophisticated (but not a naïve) person to complete the task earlier. These results provide a framework for revealing preference and sophistication types from behavior in a general environment that includes that of O'Donoghue and Rabin (1999).

JEL-codes: D15 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Revealing Naïveté and Sophistication from Procrastination and Preproperation (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:402-38

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DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170270

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