In formalizing a ‘veil of ignorance’ type procedure, this paper considers how an agent’s preferences over a set of alternatives change as he is placed at an increasing ‘distance’ from the consequences of his choices. A definition for such ‘removed preferences’ is presented and its...

The temptation literature has provided models where desires attain satisfaction by commanding the agent’s attention. We consider a model of self-deception, where desires command the agent’s reasoning, leading her to rationalize and justify actions that eventually lead into temptation....

The literature on self-control problems has typically put forth models that imply behavior that is consistent with the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference. We argue that when choice is the outcome of some underlying internal conflict, the resulting choices may not be perfectly consistent across...

This paper shows in an experiment that giving rates in a dictator game increase significantly if payments are offered with delay. We hypothesize that a temptation to be selfish may be at play in social preferences. We model this and demonstrate that our model is consistent with much of the...

A robust finding in experiments on time preference is the magnitude effect: subjects tend to be more patient towards larger rewards. Using a calibration theorem, we argue against standard curvature-based explanations for the finding. We axiomatize a model of preferences over dated rewards that...

In order to elicit discount functions, experiments commonly analyze how subjects trade-off money and time. However, discounting reveals itself most transparently in behavior obtained by fixing the money dimension and varying only the time dimension. This paper presents an experimental procedure...

Gul and Pesendorfer [9] model the static behavior of an agent who ranks menus prior to the experience of temptation. This paper models the dy- namic behavior of an agent whose ranking of menus itself is subject to temptation. The representation for the agent?s dynamically inconsistent choice...

Choice may be determined both by a consideration of one?s welfare (normative preference) and by desires (temptation preference). To provide foundations for such a theory, Gul and Pesendorfer [7, 8] adopt a preference over choice problems as a primitive and hypothesize that temptation creates a...

Experiments on time preference document numerous .ndings that seem to con- tradict the standard model of intertemporal choice. These .ndings are based on how subjects choose between delayed rewards. This paper shows that if subjects integrate such rewards with their consumption plans, and expect...

Choice may be determined both by a consideration of one’s welfare (normative preference) and by desires (temptation preference). To provide foundations for such a theory, Gul and Pesendorfer [10, 11] adopt a preference over choice problems as a primitive and hypothesize that temptation creates...