We study how international environmental agreements can take advantage of domestic time-inconsistency problems. Policymakers often prefer future policies to be sustainable, but are tempted to invest less when being in office. We find the equilibrium number of signatory countries to be higher...

This study investigates the dynamics of a stochastic hyperbolic discounting model in a continuous-time framework to address the complexities associated with the corporate international investment consumption problem (CIICP). By formulating a dynamic programming equation based on the principles...

We develop a model to analyze policymakers’ incentives to install policy rules, comparing the case of no rule with a binding and a contingent policy rule that allows policymakers to suspend the rule in response to a sufficiently large shock. First, abstracting from political polarization, we...

We take into account that envy (relative consumption concerns) is more pronounced in the present than in the future. We consider a Ramsey-type model in which agents differ only in their initial capital endowments but are identical in their exogenous parameters. Agents' preferences exhibit...

Anecdotally, physical activity appears to be a textbook example of time inconsistency, which is the failure to follow through on ex-ante preferences and plans. Interestingly, our longitudinal survey finds that, over a fortnight, exercising more than preferred/planned is actually more prevalent...

This paper investigates time inconsistencies in food consumption based on a field experiment at a college canteen where participants repeatedly select and consume lunch menus. The design features a convex non-monetary budget in a natural environment and satisfies the consume-on-receipt...

The commitment ability of governments is neither infinite nor zero but intermediate. In this paper, we determine the commitment ability that a government needs to implement a unique equilibrium outcome and rule out self-fulfilling expectations. We show that, in a large class of static...

This paper investigates time inconsistencies in food consumption based on a field experiment at a college canteen where participants repeatedly select and consume lunch menus. The design features a convex non-monetary budget in a natural environment and satisfies the consume-on-receipt...

We derive a very general ("Janus") money demand function, which reflects backward and forward-looking habit formation. This generality offers an explanation for the breakdown of money-demand functions and policy relevance of monetary aggregates. Integrating our Janus money demand into a...

The paper studies bargaining games involving players with present-biased preferences. The paper shows that the relative timing of bargaining rewards and bargaining costs will determine whether the players’ present-bias will affect bargaining outcomes. In cases where players agree to a bargain...

How and to what extent does the optimality of Universal Basic Income (UBI) depend on itstime inconsistency? I address these questions in an incomplete-markets economy by characterizingand solving for the equilibria of a dynamic game between individuals and a benevolentgovernment according to its...

This paper introduces the matched-bet mechanism. The matched bet is an easily applicable and strictly budget-balanced mechanism that aims to help people overcome time-inconsistent behavior. I show theoretically that offering a matched bet helps both sophisticated and naive procrastinators to...

Dictators, even those who seize power with the intention of helping the nation, frequently morph over time into tyrants. There may be many reasons for this. This paper focuses on one interesting and arguably pervasive driver behind this process. A model is developed which shows that the series...

In recent years, several high-profile incidents have spurred research into games of timing. A framework emanating from the FlipIt model features two covert agents competing to control a single contested resource. In its basic form, the resource exists forever while generating value at a constant...

A large literature shows that people discount financial rewards hyperbolically instead of exponentially. While discounting of money has been questioned as a measure of time preferences, it continues to be highly relevant in empirical practice and predicts a wide range of real-world behaviors,...

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...