Revealing Naivete and Sophistication from Procrastination and Preproperation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Freeman, David J.
• 署名单位: Simon Fraser University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170270
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 402-438
• 关键词: self-control; revealed preference; utility; CHOICE; temptation; CONTRACT

摘要

This paper proposes a novel way of distinguishing whether a person is naive or sophisticated about her own dynamic inconsistency using only her task-completion behavior. It shows that adding an unused extra opportunity to complete a task can lead a naive (but not a sophisticated) person to complete it later and can lead a sophisticated (but not a naive) person to complete the task earlier. These results provide a framework for revealing preference and sophistication types from behavior in a general environment that includes that of O'Donoghue and Rabin (1999).