How soon is now? Evidence of present bias from convex time budget experiments

Uttara Balakrishnan (), Johannes Haushofer and Pamela Jakiela
Additional contact information
Uttara Balakrishnan: IMPAQ International

Experimental Economics, 2020, vol. 23, issue 2, No 2, 294-321

Abstract: Abstract We conduct a laboratory experiment in Kenya in which we elicit time and risk preference parameters from 494 participants, using convex time budgets and tightly controlling for transaction costs. Using the Kenyan mobile money system M-Pesa to make real-time transfers to subjects’ phones , we vary whether same-day payments are made immediately after the experimental session or at the close of the business day. We find strong evidence of present bias, with estimates of the present bias parameter ranging from 0.902 to 0.924—but only when same-day payments are made immediately after the experiment.

Keywords: Discount rate; Present bias; Experiment; Mobile money (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D90 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10683-019-09617-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: How Soon Is Now? Evidence of Present Bias from Convex Time Budget Experiments (2017)
Working Paper: How Soon Is Now? Evidence of Present Bias from Convex Time Budget Experiments (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:kap:expeco:v:23:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10683-019-09617-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/10683/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10683-019-09617-y

Access Statistics for this article

Experimental Economics is currently edited by David J. Cooper, Lata Gangadharan and Charles N. Noussair

More articles in Experimental Economics from Springer, Economic Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().