Why do some people think they will behave differently in the future? Building on research on dynamic inconsistency and age related preferences, this paper introduces the concept that inconsistent intertemporal preferences are directly related to age. In previous studies, standard socioeconomic...

Many economically important settings, from financial markets to consumer choice, involve dynamic decisions under risk. People are willing to accept risk as part of a sequence of choices---even when it is fair or has a negative expected value---while at the same time rejecting positive-expected...

We consider an economic agent with dynamic preference over a set of uncertain monetary payoffs. We assume that the agent's preferences are given by utility functions, which are updated in a time-consistent way as more information is becoming available. Our main result is that the agent's...

In the last twenty years a growing body of experimental evidence has posed a challenge to the standard Exponential Discounting Model of choice over time. Attention has focused on some specific 'anomalies', notably preference reversal and declining discount rates, leading to the formulation of...

When solving discrete-time consumption models with present-biased time preferences, backwards induction generates equilibria that are non-robust in the sense that policy functions are often sensitive to parameter choices, including the modeler's choice of the time-step. The current paper...

Hyperbolic discounting (H) is currently the dominant behavioral model of intertemporal choice, since it better explains how people behave than the normatively correct exponential discounting model (E). This paper promotes an arithmetic discounting model (A) which challenges H. First, A is more...

We derive the equilibrium interest rate and risk premiums using recursive utility for jump-diffusions. Compared to to the continuous version, including jumps allows for a separate risk aversion related to jump size risk in addition to risk aversion related to the continuous part. The jump part...

We document an increasing capacity to resist temptation in a time consistent manner from children to teenagers. Competencies develop in two steps: From age 8 on many pupils naively plan and after age 12 successfully implement strategies to resist temptation. Our evidence comes from a food choice...

Time-inconsistent, present-biased agents may hold commitment assets hoping to keep their current and future present bias in check. Paternalistic governments, in an effort to help such people, routinely offer commitment machinery such as restrictions (or bans) on early withdrawals from...