Measuring Time Preferences

Jonathan Cohen, Keith Ericson, David Laibson and John Myles White

Journal of Economic Literature, 2020, vol. 58, issue 2, 299-347

Abstract: We review research that measures time preferences—i.e., preferences over intertemporal trade-offs. We distinguish between studies using financial flows, which we call "money earlier or later" (MEL) decisions, and studies that use time-dated consumption/effort. Under different structural models, we show how to translate what MEL experiments directly measure (required rates of return for financial flows) into a discount function over utils. We summarize empirical regularities found in MEL studies and the predictive power of those studies. We explain why MEL choices are driven in part by some factors that are distinct from underlying time preferences.

JEL-codes: C61 D15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (127)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jel.20191074 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E118804V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jel.20191074.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring Time Preferences (2016)
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:aea:jeclit:v:58:y:2020:i:2:p:299-347

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/jel.20191074

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().