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

没有兑现的未来承诺，被称为时间不一致的选择(TICS)，被认为是沉迷于立即令人满意的活动的诱惑的结果。这些活动会导致低效率的决策，比如低储蓄，克服抽搐的方法是设计迫使人们“承诺”他们的计划的合同。这项提议着眼于人们通常不愿承诺避免的一种新的抽搐。与通常的抽搐不同，这项研究将研究社交诱惑，而不是私人诱惑。公平或慷慨的行为在很大程度上是社会压力的结果，要求给予或表现出慷慨。这些社会压力在决定送礼时就能感受到，而送礼的喜悦直到实际的送礼交易后才能感受到。人们可能会忍不住承诺给予，因为社会压力要求他们表现得慷慨，但到了给予的时候，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，而是通过给予人们打破计划的灵活性来治愈。这项研究将研究如何辨别TIC的原因，以及如何最好地改善人们的结果。了解这种新型的TICS将导致更好的决策，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TICS的文献假设，未来的计划不存在目前的偏见，只有通过承诺计划才能克服这些偏见。这项研究背后的想法是，同样的行为--陈述和打破计划--可以来自两个同样自然和直观的模型，但其中一个最好的解决办法是承诺，而另一个需要灵活性。除了“目前的偏见”导致的常见的抽搐外，一些人还因为社会压力而对他们不打算坚持到底的未来做出承诺。处理这类时间不一致选择的有效政策是允许灵活地选择退出承诺。这项研究将开发模型并进行实验，以区分抽搐的两种来源。开发的想法将被应用于几个领域，如慈善捐赠和公平正义的概念，这些领域的社会压力是重要的。这项研究将使用实验室和现场实验相结合的方法，以及经济理论来开发假设和测试。这项研究的结果将有助于我们更好地理解时间不一致的选择问题，并帮助提供更好的合同设计，以改善社会结果。研究结果也适用于经济学和其他社会科学的多个领域。

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.