An Experiment on Time Preference and Misprediction in Unpleasant Tasks

Ned Augenblick and Matthew Rabin

The Review of Economic Studies, 2019, vol. 86, issue 3, 941-975

Abstract: We experimentally investigate the time-inconsistent taste for immediate gratification and future-preference misprediction. Across 7 weeks, 100 participants choose the number of unpleasant transcription tasks given various wages to complete immediately and at different future dates. Participants preferred 10–12% fewer tasks in the present compared to any future date, leading to an estimated $\beta $ of $0.83$. Comparing predictions with actual immediate-work choices provides evidence against substantial sophistication, with estimates implying that participants understand no more than 24% of their present bias. Finally, we find evidence of “projection bias”: participants wished to complete 4–12% fewer tasks when decisions were elicited right after completing tasks rather than before.

Keywords: Time discounting; Sophistication; Maivete; Misprediction; Real effort; Projection bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D81 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdy019 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:restud:v:86:y:2019:i:3:p:941-975.

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().