Time preferences and consumer behavior

David Bradford, Charles Courtemanche, Garth Heutel, Patrick McAlvanah and Christopher Ruhm
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: W. David Bradford

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2017, vol. 55, issue 2, No 2, 119-145

Abstract: Abstract We investigate the predictive power of survey-elicited time preferences. The discount factor elicited from choice experiments using real payments predicts various health, energy, and financial outcomes, including overall self-reported health, smoking, installing energy-efficient lighting, and credit card balance. Allowing for time-inconsistent preferences, both the long-run and present-bias discount factors (δ and β) are also significantly associated in the expected direction with several outcomes. We consider several hypotheses regarding the strength of the association between discount factors and outcomes, such as salience of the outcome or liquidity constraints.

Keywords: Time preferences; Time-inconsistency; Health; Energy; Risk and time; Discounting; Present bias; D91; D03; I12; Q40; D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (82)

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Working Paper: Time Preferences and Consumer Behavior (2014)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11166-018-9272-8

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