Charles Sprenger

Temporal Stability of Time Preferences

The preferences assumed to govern intertemporal trade-offs are generally considered to be stable economic primitives, though evidence on this stability is notably lacking. We present evidence from a large field study conducted over two years, with around 1,400 individuals using incentivized intertemporal choice experiments. Aggregate choice profiles and corresponding estimates of discount parameters are unchanged over the two years and individual correlations through time are high by existing standards. However, some individuals show signs of instability. By linking experimental measures to administrative tax records, we showthat identified instability is uncorrelated with both levels and changes in sociodemographic variables.

An Endowment Effect for Risk: Experimental Tests of Stochastic Reference Points

Recent models of reference-dependent preferences indicate that expectations may play a prominent role in the presence of behavioral anomalies. A subset of such expectations-based models predicts an “endowment effect for risk”: that risk attitudes differ when reference points change from certain to stochastic. In two purposefully simple risk preference experiments, eliminating often-discussed confounds, I demonstrate both between and within subjects such an endowment effect for risk. These results provide needed separation between expectations-based reference-dependent models, allow for evaluation of recent theoretical extensions, and may help to close a long-standing debate in decision science on inconsistency between utility elicitation methodologies.

Impatience and Credit Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment

This paper tests whether heterogeneity of time preferences can explain individual credit behavior. In a field experiment targeting individuals from low-to-moderate income households, we measure individual time preferences through choice experiments, and then match these time preference measures to individual credit reports and annual tax returns. ; We find that, controlling for disposable income and other individual characteristics, individuals who are less patient have lower credit scores and higher default rates. Moreover, people with dynamically inconsistent (quasi-hyperbolic) preferences have higher active borrowing levels.

Selection into Financial Literacy Programs: Evidence from a Field Study

As financial literacy has been shown to correlate with good financial decisions, policymakers promote educational programs to improve individuals’ financial decisions. But who selects into educational programs and who acquires information about personal finance? This paper, in a field study with more than 870 individuals, offers individuals free information about their credit reports (and credit scores). About 55 percent choose to participate in this small counseling program. To test whether those who self-select to acquire information about personal finance differ from those who do not on (normally) unobservable characteristics, we elicit time preferences, using incentivized choice experiments. Our results show that the two groups differ sharply in their discount factors: those who choose to acquire information do not discount the future as much as those who choose not to acquire information. This result has implications for financial education programs.

Dynamic Inconsistency in Food Choice: Experimental Evidence from a Food Desert

Despite the great deal of research on dynamic inconsistency in time preferences, few studies have ventured into investigating the question in a natural context. To address this gap, we conduct a natural field experiment with over 200 customers at a grocery store to investigate dynamic inconsistency and the demand for commitment in food choice. Over a 3 week time period, subjects are invited to allocate and re-allocate food items received as part of a grocery delivery program. We observe substantial dynamic inconsistency in our experiment, as well as a demand for commitment among a non-negligible number of subjects. Interestingly, individuals who demand commitment are more likely to be dynamically consistent in their prior behavior. For academics, our work provides direct evidence of dynamic inconsistency in consumption choices in the field and points towards potential extensions to models of temptation. For policy-makers, our findings provide insights on innovations to alter food choices.

Heterogeneity of Loss Aversion and Expectations-Based Reference Points

This project examines the role of heterogeneity in loss aversion for identifying models of expectations-based reference dependence (Kőszegi and Rabin, 2006, 2007) (KR). Different levels of loss aversion lead to different signs for comparative statics previously used to test the KR model. In an experiment with 607 subjects, we show heterogeneous treatment effects over loss aversion types. Recognizing heterogeneity in loss aversion allows us to reliably recover the KR model’s central element of expectations-based reference points. Additional effects are discussed related to the subjective perception of exchange experiences.

A Stream of Prospects or a Prospect of Streams: On the Evaluation of Intertemporal Risks

Recent debate has identified important gaps in the understanding of intertemporal risks. Critical to closing these gaps is evidence on which dimension of intertemporal risk – the risk or the time – is evaluated first. Though under discounted expected utility this ordering is of no consequence, under discounted non-expected utility models the order of evaluation is critical. We provide experimental tests in which different orderings of evaluation generate different predictions for behavior. We find more support for the notion that the risk dimension is evaluated first. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.