Eliciting Temptation and Self†Control Through Menu Choices: A Lab Experiment

Séverine Toussaert

Econometrica, 2018, vol. 86, issue 3, 859-889

Abstract: Unlike present†biased individuals, agents who suffer self†control costs as in Gul and Pesendorfer, 2001 may choose to restrict their choice set even when they expect to resist temptation. To identify these self†control types, I design an experiment in which the temptation was to read a story during a tedious task. The identification strategy relies on a two†step procedure. First, I measure commitment demand by eliciting subjects' preferences over menus that did or did not allow access to the story. I then implement preferences using a random mechanism, allowing to observe subjects who faced the choice yet preferred commitment. A quarter to a third of subjects can be classified as self†control types according to their menu preferences. When confronted with the choice, virtually all of them behaved as they anticipated and resisted temptation. These findings suggest that policies restricting the availability of tempting options could have larger welfare benefits than predicted by standard models of present bias.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA14172

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:wly:emetrp:v:86:y:2018:i:3:p:859-889

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.economet ... ordering-back-issues

Access Statistics for this article

Econometrica is currently edited by Guido W. Imbens

More articles in Econometrica from Econometric Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().