Effortful Self-Control, Consumption, and Wealth Accumulation

自省告诉我们，代理人往往会努力克服诱惑。此外，这种努力的自我控制与ameriks、Caplin和Leahy的发现大体一致，即计划和预算的代理人往往会存更多的钱，积累更多的财富。发展新的理论模型和丰富有关自我控制的经验证据是很重要的。该提案有两个相关但独立的部分。第一部分是实证研究。卡普林和莱希将利用与TIAA-CREF合作设计和实施的一项新调查，研究自我控制问题在财富积累中的作用，并研究人们用来克服这些问题的机制。初步研究结果表明，本次调查中开发的自我控制措施与财富积累密切相关，而且似乎存在两种重要的自我控制问题：过度消费和消费不足。下一阶段是研究自我控制在经济、行为和人口统计学方面的相关性。纽约大学心理学系的Tom Tyler教授和TIAA-CREF研究所的John ameriks博士将在这项研究上合作。提案的第二部分是理论上的。卡普林和莱希将开发努力自我控制的新模型，并研究其对财富积累的影响。初步模型表明，对风险的态度影响关注消费支出的动机，并对储蓄行为产生重要影响。John ameriks将参与这项研究。(1)拟议活动的智力价值该项目将增加我们对消费和储蓄行为的理解。之前关于努力自我控制的研究很少，对自我控制对财富积累的影响的估计也很少。卡普林和莱希教授在调查设计和构建经济行为理论模型方面经验丰富。之前的一次调查导致发表了一份《经济学季刊》，并向《经济学和统计评论》提交了一份报告。(2)这项研究的拟议活动结果所产生的更广泛的影响将通过会议报告和提交给学术期刊的报告广泛传播。o与泰勒教授的合作将加深纽约大学经济系和心理学系之间的互动。这应该会导致经济学和心理学领域之间进一步的富有成效的互动。o卡普林和莱希教授将尽一切善意努力与联邦和当地法律保持一致，以使在该项目期间收集的数据可供其他研究人员使用。

Introspection tells us that agents often exert effort to overcome temptation. In addition, such effortful self-control is broadly consistent with the findings of Ameriks, Caplin and Leahy (QJE, forthcoming) that agents who plan and budget tend to save more and accumulate greater wealth. It is important to develop new theoretical models and to enrich the empirical evidence on self-control. There are two related, but independent, parts to the proposal. The first part is empirical. Caplin and Leahy will use a new survey designed and implemented in cooperation with TIAA-CREF to study the role of self- control problems in wealth accumulation and to study the mechanisms that people employ to overcome these problems. Preliminary findings indicate that the measure of self-control developed in this survey is strongly correlated with wealth accumulation and that there appear to be two important types of self-control problems: over-consumption and under-consumption. The next stage is to examine the economic, behavioral and demographic correlates of self-control. Prof. Tom Tyler of the Psychology Department of New York University and Dr. John Ameriks of the TIAA-CREF Institute will be collaborating on this research.The second part of the proposal is theoretical. Caplin and Leahy will develop new models of effortful self-control and investigate the implications for wealth accumulation. A preliminary model indicates that attitudes towards risk affect the incentive to attend to consumption expenditures with important implications for saving behavior. John Ameriks will be collaborating on this research.(1) The Intellectual Merit of the Proposed ActivityThe project will increase our understanding of consumption and saving behavior. There has been little prior work on effortful self-control and few estimates of the effect of self-control on wealth accumulation. Professors Caplin and Leahy have experience in survey design and in the construction of theoretical models of economic behavior. A previous survey led to one publication the Quarterly Journal of Economics and a submission to the Review of Economics and Statistics.(2) The Broader Impacts Resulting from the Proposed Activityo Results of this research will be disseminated broadly through conference presentations and through submissions to academic journals.o Collaboration with Prof. Tyler will deepen the interactions between the departments of Economics and Psychology at New York University. This should lead to further fruitful interaction between the fields of economics and psychology.o Professors Caplin and Leahy will make every good faith effort consistent with Federal and local law to make the data that is collected during this project available to other researchers.