Do Couples Discount Future Consequences Less than Individuals?

Mohammed Abdellaoui, Olivier L'Haridon and Corina Paraschiv
Additional contact information
Corina Paraschiv: HEC-Paris & GREGHEC-CNRS, France

Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) from Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS

Abstract: This paper examines couple time preferences by reporting the results of an ex- periment based on the elicitation of nearest equivalent values. Decisions involving delayed outcomes are studied for each of the two partners individually and for the couple. This allows for a direct comparison between couple behavior and individual partners’ behavior in choices over time. We use Fishburn and Rubinstein’s (1982) discounted utility model and infer measurements of utility and discounting at both the individual and the couple level. While utility is found to be similar for cou- ples and individuals, we observe that, in decision over time, couples discount future amounts of money less than individuals. This result suggests that making joint decisions significantly reduces revealed impatience. Moreover, we show that cou- ple time preferences cannot be considered as a mix of the individual preferences of each of the two partners. Taken together, these findings suggest that determinants of intertemporal decisions made by couples, such as financial decisions, should be considered as distinct from determinants of individual decisions.

Keywords: Household decision-making; time preferences; hyperbolic discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ged.univ-rennes1.fr/nuxeo/site/esupversion ... 85-ab04-2c935d139260 (application/pdf)

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:tut:cremwp:201320

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
CREM (UMR CNRS 6211) - Faculty of Economics, 7 place Hoche, 35065 Rennes Cedex - France

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) from Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS CREM (UMR CNRS 6211) – Faculty of Economics, 7 place Hoche, 35065 RENNES Cedex. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by GERMAIN Lucie ().