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Tracking Costs of Time and Money: How Accounting Periods Affect Mental Accounting

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  • Robin L. Soster
  • Ashwani Monga
  • William O. Bearden

Abstract

After people incur costs to get future benefits, they usually track these costs in their mental accounts and are keen to receive the benefits when they become available. We introduce the notion that costs and benefits can occur either in the same accounting period (day, season, etc.) or in different periods. Our key argument is that monetary costs are tracked across accounting periods but that temporal costs are written off at the end of the period in which they are incurred. Thus, accounting periods lead to a time-money asymmetry in the tracking of costs and, consequently, in the likelihood of seeking benefits. In a laboratory study, an online-panel study, and a field study with movie-theater patrons, we demonstrate how this relationship among accounting periods, cost tracking, and benefit seeking is different for time than for money. Our findings offer insights into the sunk-cost effect, time-money differences, and mental accounting. (c) 2010 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Suggested Citation

  • Robin L. Soster & Ashwani Monga & William O. Bearden, 2010. "Tracking Costs of Time and Money: How Accounting Periods Affect Mental Accounting," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(4), pages 712-721, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:37:y:2010:i:4:p:712-721
    DOI: 10.1086/656388
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Park, Jeong-Yeol & Jang, SooCheong (Shawn), 2014. "Sunk costs and travel cancellation: Focusing on temporal cost," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 425-435.
    2. Jae‐Do Song, 2023. "Excessive banking preference in emissions trading," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 448-458, January.
    3. Beshears, John & Dai, Hengchen & Milkman, Katherine L. & Benartzi, Shlomo, 2021. "Using fresh starts to nudge increased retirement savings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 72-87.
    4. Feurer, Sven & Haws, Kelly L., 2022. "Justifiable justifications in sequential indulgent choice situations: A framework for future research based on perceived exceptionality," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 630-639.
    5. Grewal, Dhruv & Kopalle, Praveen & Marmorstein, Howard & Roggeveen, Anne L., 2012. "Does Travel Time to Stores Matter? The Role of Merchandise Availability," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 437-444.
    6. Besharat, Ali & Nardini, Gia, 2018. "When indulgence gets the best of you: Unexpected consequences of prepayment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 321-328.
    7. Christopher Y. Olivola & Stephanie W. Wang, 2016. "Patience auctions: the impact of time vs. money bidding on elicited discount rates," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 864-885, December.
    8. Hengchen Dai & Katherine L. Milkman & Jason Riis, 2014. "The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(10), pages 2563-2582, October.
    9. Dai, Hengchen, 2018. "A double-edged sword: How and why resetting performance metrics affects motivation and performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 12-29.
    10. Alharthi, Amal & Cortese, Corinne & Moerman, Lee & Tanima, Farzana, 2022. "Surveillance capitalism in the middle east retail sector," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    11. Jouxtel, Justine, 2019. "Voluntary contributions of time: Time-based incentives in a linear public goods game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 75(PA).

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