IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/umagsb/2013008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Present-bias in different income groups

Author

Listed:
  • Can, B.

    (Microeconomics & Public Economics)

  • Erdem, O.

Abstract

The excessive use of credit cards and increasing consumer borrowing has been a major problem. Laibson (1997) suggests the present-bias problem as one of the driving forces of excessive borrowing. Shefrin and Thaler (1988) suggest that self-control underlies national borrowing/savings rate. We conduct a survey to check for present-bias as well as self-control problems among individuals in Turkey. Our findings show that different income groups have similar discount factors, i.e., impatience levels, but very different degrees of dynamic inconsistencies, i.e. present-bias levels. In particular, 29.4% of low-income individuals exhibit present-bias whereas this is down to 6.4% for high-income individuals. Using the parameters we achieve through the surveys, policymakers can design appropriate commitment devices for time-inconsistent individuals to ensure a sustainable level of aggregate saving and financial investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Can, B. & Erdem, O., 2013. "Present-bias in different income groups," Research Memorandum 008, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    • Handle: RePEc:unm:umagsb:2013008
    DOI: 10.26481/umagsb.2013008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl/ws/files/1436715/guid-81733505-3f13-46f8-9228-3eb7b6dbc13d-ASSET1.0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26481/umagsb.2013008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    2. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    3. Botond Kőszegi & Paul Heidhues, 2008. "Competition and Price Variation When Consumers Are Loss Averse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1245-1268, September.
    4. Thaler, Richard, 1981. "Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 201-207.
    5. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2010. "Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 193-210, January.
    6. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & Melonie B. Williams, 2002. "Estimating Individual Discount Rates in Denmark: A Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1606-1617, December.
    7. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    8. Shefrin, Hersh M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "The Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 609-643, October.
    9. Ernst Fehr, 2002. "The economics of impatience," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6869), pages 269-272, January.
    10. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    11. Paul A. Samuelson, 1937. "A Note on Measurement of Utility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 4(2), pages 155-161.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Incekara-Hafalir, Elif & Linardi, Sera, 2017. "Awareness of low self-control: Theory and evidence from a homeless shelter," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 39-54.
    2. Massimo Filippini & Nilkanth Kumar & Suchita Srinivasan, 2021. "Behavioral Anomalies and Fuel Efficiency: Evidence from Motorcycles in Nepal," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 21/353, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2016. "How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 115-135.
    2. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    3. Cheung, Stephen L. & Tymula, Agnieszka & Wang, Xueting, 2021. "Quasi-Hyperbolic Present Bias: A Meta-Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 14625, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    5. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    6. Uttara Balakrishnan & Johannes Haushofer & Pamela Jakiela, 2020. "How soon is now? Evidence of present bias from convex time budget experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 294-321, June.
    7. Andreoni, James & Kuhn, Michael A. & Sprenger, Charles, 2015. "Measuring time preferences: A comparison of experimental methods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 451-464.
    8. Ring, Patrick & Probst, Catharina C. & Neyse, Levent & Wolff, Stephan & Kaernbach, Christian & van Eimeren, Thilo & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2021. "Discounting Behavior in Problem Gambling," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 240211, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Jindrich Matousek & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova, 2022. "Individual discount rates: a meta-analysis of experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 318-358, February.
    10. Burak Can & Orhan Erdem, 2013. "Income groups and long term investment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 3014-3022.
    11. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2010. "Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 193-210, January.
    12. Carlsson, Fredrik & Yang, Xiaojun, 2013. "Intertemporal Choice Shifts in Households: Do they occur and are they good?," Working Papers in Economics 569, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    13. Ned Augenblick & Muriel Niederle & Charles Sprenger, 2013. "Working Over Time: Dynamic Inconsistency in Real Effort Tasks," NBER Working Papers 18734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ring, Patrick & Probst, Catharina C. & Neyse, Levent & Wolff, Stephan & Kaernbach, Christian & van Eimeren, Thilo & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2022. "Discounting Behavior in Problem Gambling," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 38(2), pages 529-543.
    15. Stephan Meier & Charles Sprenger, 2007. "Impatience and credit behavior: evidence from a field experiment," Working Papers 07-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. Aycinena, Diego & Blazsek, Szabolcs & Rentschler, Lucas & Sprenger, Charles, 2022. "Intertemporal choice experiments and large-stakes behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 484-500.
    17. James Andreoni & Christina Gravert & Michael A. Kuhn & Silvia Saccardo & Yang Yang, 2018. "Arbitrage Or Narrow Bracketing? On Using Money to Measure Intertemporal Preferences," NBER Working Papers 25232, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Shinsuke Ikeda & Myong-Il Kang, 2015. "Hyperbolic Discounting, Borrowing Aversion and Debt Holding," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 421-446, December.
    19. James Andreoni & Michael A. Kuhn & Charles Sprenger, 2013. "On Measuring Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 19392, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Myong‐Il Kang & Shinsuke Ikeda, 2014. "Time Discounting And Smoking Behavior: Evidence From A Panel Survey," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(12), pages 1443-1464, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:umagsb:2013008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andrea Willems or Leonne Portz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meteonl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.