To accurately predict behavior economists need reliable measures of individual time preferences and attitudes toward risk and typically need to assume stability of these characteristics over time and across decision domains. We test the reliability of two choice tasks for eliciting discount...

We consider discounted-utility models with a reference stream of outcomes. We provide a common framework for the main empirically supported discount functions in terms of three underlying functions: The delay, speedup and generating functions. Each of the delay and speedup functions can be...

I revisit the Rubinstein (1982) model for the classic problem of price haggling and show that bargaining can become a "trap," where equilibrium leaves one party strictly worse off than if no transaction took place (e.g., the equilibrium price exceeds a buyer's valuation). This arises when one...

The effectiveness of health recommendations and treatment plans depends on the extent to which individuals follow them. For the individual, medical adherence involves an inter-temporal trade-off between expected future health benefits and immediate effort costs. Therefore examining time...

We study the malleability of patience via educational interventions by aggregating evidence from earlier experiments in a meta-analysis and by conducting a field experiment. We find that the average effect of interventions on patience is positive but uncertain. The age of students explains a...

We present the results of a randomized intervention to study how teaching financial literacy to 16-year old high-school students affects their behavior in risk and time preference tasks. Compared to two different control treatments, we find that teaching financial literacy makes subjects behave...

We use novel data on nearly 6,000 children and adolescents aged 6 to 16 that combine incen-tivized measures of social, time, and risk preferences with rich information on child behavior and family environment to study whether children's economic preferences predict their behavior. Re-sults from...

We explore the individual and joint explanatory power of concepts from economics, psychology, and criminology for criminal behavior. More precisely, we consider risk and time preferences, personality traits from psychology (Big Five and locus of control), and a self-control scale from...

Recent developments in economic theory model intertemporal choice decisions as problems of restraining one's natural impulse to consume today. We use interventions that have been shown in the psychology literature to affect impulse control to examine whether this is indeed the case for...

We analyze the relation between time preferences, study effort, and academic performance among first-year business and economics students. Time preferences are measured by stated preferences for an immediate payment over larger delayed payments. Data on study efforts are derived from an...