Self-delusion in the pursuit of happiness

Dag Einar Sommervoll ()
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Dag Einar Sommervoll: Statistics Norway, https://www.ssb.no/en/forskning/ansatte

Discussion Papers from Statistics Norway, Research Department

Abstract: The paper explores how repeated revisions of consumption plans increase long-run utility. If agents value present anticipations of future consumption, some revisions may be viewed as a benign form of self-delusion. We consider a minimal generalization of the Samuelson discounted utility model to allow for utility linked to next period consumption. Agents are assumed to vary with respect to their sophistication. Different environments likely to facilitate repeated revisions are also considered.

Keywords: Intertemporalchoice; selfdelusion; timeinconsistency; naivete; self-con trol; discountedutilityfunctions; anticipation; memory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B49 C70 D11 D60 D74 D91 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-ltv
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssb:dispap:604

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