Experimental Studies of Time Inconsistent Preferences for Risk, Fairness, and Charitable Giving

【摘要】不遵守的未来承诺，被称为时间不一致的选择（tic），被认为是沉迷于立即满足的活动的诱惑的结果。这些活动导致了低效的决策，例如低储蓄，克服tic的方法是设计契约，迫使人们“承诺”他们的计划。这一提议着眼于一种人们通常不愿承诺避免的新型tic。与通常的tic不同，这项研究将研究社交诱惑而非私人诱惑。行为公平或慷慨的很大一部分是社会压力的结果，要求给予或表现得慷慨。这些社会压力是在决定给予的时候感受到的，而给予的快乐直到真正的礼物被交易时才会感受到。人们可能会因为社会压力而承诺慷慨，但当给予的时刻到来时，他们可能不会兑现承诺。这种TIC不需要通过承诺计划来治愈，而是要给人们灵活性来打破他们的计划。这项研究将研究如何判断TIC的病因，以及如何最好地改善患者的预后。了解这种新型的投资组合将有助于做出更好的决策，例如增加储蓄、教育投资和政策制定，从而提高美国公民的生活水平和美国经济的竞争力。关于tic的文献假设未来计划不受当前偏见的影响，而当前偏见只能通过承诺计划来克服。这项研究背后的想法是，同样的行为？陈述和破坏一个计划？可能来自两种同样自然和直观的模式，但其中一种最好通过承诺来治愈，而另一种需要灵活性。除了常见的由“当下偏见”导致的tic外，有些人因为社会压力而对未来做出了承诺，但他们并不打算兑现。处理这类时间不一致的选择的有效策略是允许灵活地选择退出承诺。本研究将建立模型并进行实验，以区分两种来源的tic。这些想法将被应用到几个领域，比如慈善捐赠和公平正义的概念，在这些领域，社会压力很重要。这项研究将结合实验室和实地实验，并结合经济理论来提出假设和测试。本研究的结果将有助于我们更好地理解时间不一致选择的问题，并有助于提供更好的契约设计来改善社会结果。研究结果也适用于经济学和其他社会科学的几个领域。

AbstractFuture commitments that are not followed through, referred to as time-inconsistent choices (TICs), are considered the result of temptation to indulge in immediately satisfying activities. These activities lead to inefficient decisions, such as low savings, and the way to overcome TICs is to design contracts that force people to "commit" to their plans. This proposal looks at a new breed of TICs that people often do not want to commit to avoiding. Unlike usual TICs, this research will study temptations that are social rather than private. A large component of acting fairly or generously is the result of social pressures to give or to appear generous. These social pressures are felt at the time of the decision to give, while the joy of giving is not felt until the actual gift is transacted. People may be tempted to promise to give because of the social pressure to appear generous but may not follow through when the time comes to give. This TIC need not be cured by commitment plans, but by giving people the flexibility to break with their plans. This research will study how one can tell which cause of TIC is at work, and how best to improve people's outcomes. Understanding this new breed of TICs will lead to better decisions, such as increased savings, investment in education, and policy formulation, thus improving the living standards of U.S. citizens and the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.The literature on TICs assumes that plans for the future are made free from present bias which can only be overcome by commitment plans. The idea behind this research is that the same behavior?stating and breaking a plan?can come from two equally natural and intuitive models, but one is best cured by commitment while the other requires flexibility. Besides the usual TICs resulting from "present bias", some people make commitment for the future they do not intend to follow through because of social pressure. Efficient policy to deal with this type of time inconsistent choice is to allow for flexibility to opt out of the commitment. This research will develop models and conduct experiments to distinguish between the two sources of TICs. The ideas developed will be applied to several areas, such as charitable giving and notions of fairness and justice, where social pressures are important. The research will use a combination of laboratory and field experiments, and economic theory to develop hypotheses and tests. The results of this research will help us better understand the issues of time-inconsistent choices and help provide better contract design to improve social outcomes. The results are also applicable to several areas of economics and other social sciences.