Journal
JOURNAL OF RISK AND UNCERTAINTY
Volume 37, Issue 2-3, Pages 237-269Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11166-008-9053-x
Keywords
Intertemporal discounting; Intertemporal choice; Impulsiveness; Health; Investment; C; D; I; J
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Funding
- NIA NIH HHS [R01 AG021650-06, R01 AG021650, P01 AG005842, P01 AG005842-23] Funding Source: Medline
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We estimate discount rates of 555 subjects using a laboratory task and find that these individual discount rates predict inter-individual variation in field behaviors (e.g., exercise, BMI, smoking). The correlation between the discount rate and each field behavior is small: none exceeds 0.28 and many are near 0. However, the discount rate has at least as much predictive power as any variable in our dataset (e.g., sex, age, education). The correlation between the discount rate and field behavior rises when field behaviors are aggregated: these correlations range from 0.09-0.38. We present a model that explains why specific intertemporal choice behaviors are only weakly correlated with discount rates, even though discount rates robustly predict aggregates of intertemporal decisions.
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