We propose nonparametric definitions of absolute and comparative naiveté. These definitions leverage ex-ante choice of menu to identify predictions of future behavior and ex-post (random) choices from menus to identify actual behavior. The main advantage of our definitions is their independence...

This paper presents an analysis of general time preferences in the canonical Rubinstein (1982) model of bargaining, allowing for arbitrarily history-dependent strategies. I derive a simple sufficient structure for optimal punishments and thereby fully characterize (i) the set of equilibrium...

There is a puzzle arising from empirical analyses of the impact of music piracy that this has caused declines in music revenue without a consequential decline, and perhaps even an increase, in the entry of artists and the supply of high quality music. There have been numerous explanations...

Restrictions on alcohol sales hours or days are commonly used tools in order to reduce alcohol consumption. However, a forward-looking consumer can buy in advance, and thereby mostly undo the impact of the restriction. I study whether time inconsistent consumer preferences can provide a...

In accounting for the phenomenon of present bias, the hyperbolic discounting and quasi-hyperbolic discounting models have distinct predictions beyond today. We provide experimental evidence supporting diminishing rate of discounting beyond present period under careful experimental controls. In...

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...

When the discount rate is uncertain, individuals whose preferences are consistent with discounted expected utility, exhibit diminishing impatience. This paper introduces and characterizes a variation of discounted expected utility in which the discount rate depends on the state of the nature...

We consider long-run behavior of agents assessing risk in terms of dynamic convex risk measures or, equivalently, utility in terms of dynamic variational preferences in an uncertain setting. By virtue of a robust representation, we show that all uncertainty is revealed in the limit and agents...

This paper studies the design of optimal time-consistent monetary policy in an economy where the planner trusts its own model, while a representative household uses a set of alternative probability distributions governing the evolution of the exogenous state of the economy. In such environments,...

As the dynamic mean-variance portfolio selection formulation does not satisfy the principle of optimality of dynamic programming, phenomena of time inconsistency occur, i.e., investors may have incentives to deviate from the pre-committed optimal mean-variance portfolio policy during the...