How to commit (if you must): Commitment contracts and the dual-self model

Alexander Peysakhovich

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2014, vol. 101, issue C, 100-112

Abstract: This paper studies how dual-self (Fudenberg and Levine, 2006) decision-makers can use commitment technologies to combat temptation and implement long-run optimal actions. I consider three types of commitment technologies: carrot contracts (rewards for ‘good’ behavior financed by borrowing from future consumption), stick contracts (self imposed fines for ‘bad’ behavior) and binding commitment. I compare the welfare implications of these contracts and show that dual-self decision-makers strictly prefer to use carrots instead of either sticks or binding commitments. This is for several reasons: sticks are highly vulnerable to trembles (while carrots are not), sticks and binding commitments create a temptation to cancel them (while carrots do not), and finally carrots allow easy tradeoffs between commitment and flexibility (while sticks and binding commitments do not).

Keywords: Behavioral economics; Self-control; Dual-self model; Decision-making; Commitment contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268114000365
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jeborg:v:101:y:2014:i:c:p:100-112

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().