This project contributes expertise in foundational questions of behavioral economics and decision-making to the unit. We develop novel methodological tools for the measurement of time preferences, the sophistication about them, and their stability over time. One important aspect of time preferences is time-(in)consistency. Actual behavior may deviate from planned and rational behavior even though the decision environment has not changed. We aim at advancing our understanding of time-inconsistency, theoretically with regard to its causes, empirically through its measurement, and in an applied way, by investigating its stability and implications for real-world behavior as well as by providing tractable modelling approaches for other economists. Advancing the latter will involve axiomatic, applied theoretical, and econometric approaches. Moreover, since time-inconsistency is one important way to model self-control failure, we will address an open question concerning the nature of self-control, namely whether it can be understood as a unitary construct or, alternatively, as an umbrella term for a number of potentially related but ultimately different constructs. We will address this issue empirically by providing a comprehensive synopsis of empirical measurement tools of self-control from various disciplines in order to examine whether different self-control measures converge in what they suggest about a given individual (i.e., study their “convergent validity”).
DFG Programme
Research Units
International Connection
Australia, United Kingdom, USA
