Time is knowledge: what response times reveal

Jean-Michel Benkert, Shuo Liu and Nick Netzer

No 449, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Response times contain information about economically relevant but unobserved variables like willingness to pay, preference intensity, quality, or happiness. Here, we provide a general characterization of the properties of latent variables that can be detected using response time data. Our characterization unifies and generalizes results in the literature, solves identification problems of binary response models, and has many new applications. We apply the result to test and support the hypothesis that marginal happiness is decreasing in income, a principle that is commonly accepted but so far not established empirically.

Keywords: Response times; chronometric effect; binary response model; non-parametric identification; decreasing marginal happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 D60 D91 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-08, Revised 2025-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ecm and nep-knm
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Working Paper: Time is Knowledge: What Response Times Reveal (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:449

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