In this paper, we study intertemporal social welfare evaluations when agents have heterogeneous preferences that are interpersonally noncomparable. We first show that even if all agents share the same preferences, there is a conflict between the axioms of Pareto principle, time consistency, and...

This paper tests whether young and adult smokers have different time preferences, in particular with respect to time consistency. The recent introduction of Tobacco 21 law in the US were in part motivated by allegedly inconsistent time preferences of the young consumers. This research...

This project analyzes how a principal can motivate an agent to conserve rather than exploit a depletable resource. This dynamic problem is relevant for tropical deforestation as well as for other environmental problems. It is shown that the smaller is the agent's discount factor (e.g., because...

We study the identification of dynamic discrete choice models with hyperbolic discounting using a terminating action. We provide novel identification results for both sophisticated and naive agents’ discount factors and their utilities in a finite horizon framework under the assumption of a...

This paper studies the aggregate and distributional implications of Markov-perfect taxspending policy in a neoclassical growth model with capitalists and workers. Focusing on the long run, our main findings are: (i) it is optimal for a benevolent government, which cares equally about its...

We study the association of the perseverance-of-effort (PoE) and the consistency-of-interests (CoI) components of the psychological measure of grit, with economic measures of impatience and decreasing impatience (time inconsistency), respectively, in the general population. We find that...