LEARNING AND VISCERAL TEMPTATION IN DYNAMIC SAVING EXPERIMENTS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brown, Alexander L.; Chua, Zhikang Eric; Camerer, Colin F.
• 署名单位: California Institute of Technology
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.1.197
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 197-231
• 关键词: rational-expectations; optimal consumption; INFORMATION; security; IMPULSIVENESS; generations; BEHAVIOR; policies; income

摘要

This paper tests two explanations for apparent undersaving in life cycle models: bounded rationality and a preference for immediacy. Each was addressed in a separate experimental study. In the first study, subjects saved too little initially-providing evidence for bounded rationality-but learned to save optimally within four repeated life cycles. In the second study, thirsty subjects who consume beverage sips immediately, rather than with a delay, show greater relative overspending, consistent with quasi-hyperbolic discounting models. The parameter estimates of overspending obtained from the second study, but not the first, are in range of several empirical studies of saving (with an estimated beta = 0.6-0.7).