Measuring Time Preferences / Jonathan D. Cohen, Keith Marzilli Ericson, David Laibson, John Myles White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Jonathan D.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ericson, Keith Marzilli.

Laibson, David.

White, John Myles.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22455.

NBER working paper series no. w22455

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

We review research that measures time preferences--i.e., preferences over intertemporal tradeoffs. We distinguish between studies using financial flows, which we call "money earlier or later" (MEL) decisions and studies that use time-dated consumption/effort. Under different structural models, we show how to translate what MEL experiments directly measure (required rates of return for financial flows) into a discount function over utils. We summarize empirical regularities found in MEL studies and the predictive power of those studies. We explain why MEL choices are driven in part by some factors that are distinct from underlying time preferences.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2016.