Discount Rates Inferred From Decisions: An Experimental Study

Intertemporal Choice and Development Policy: New Evidence on Time‐varying Discount Rates From Vietnam and Russia

“…They find evidence of much higher discount rates in developing countries than those reported for similar life-saving choice questions in the United States, and also find that discount rates decline over time. The most comparable study to ours is by Tanaka, Camerer, and Nguyen (forthcoming) in Vietnam, who use a similar question to Thaler (1981) and Benzion, Rapoport, and Yagil (1989) to look at risk, discounting, and trust. Bauer, Chytilová, and Morduch (2008) examine discount rates over time in rural India.…”

“…He asked University of Oregon students to state the amount of money they would require to either postpone a fine or expedite the receipt of lottery winnings, assuming no risk. Benzion, Rapoport, and Yagil (1989) conducted a similar study a few years later in Israel, with students at the University of Haifa and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Their questionnaire recorded choices over four scenarios that included postponing or expediting a receipt or payment, across different time delays and amounts.…”

“…An interesting assumption we raise is whether prior institutions that de jure required more patience (if more resources under communism are rationed by waiting and cooperation) are associated with a population that has more time consistency (McMillan and Woodruff 1999;Frye 2000). Our second goal was to assess how individual characteristics relate to discount rates within Sources: Thaler (1981) and Benzion, Rapoport, and Yagil (1989). populations, as previous studies "fail to converge to any empirical consensus" (Nielson 2001, p. 5). Whereas the data in Thaler and Benzion et al is collected from university students, we have samples that are representative of the local population, data on socioeconomic characteristics, and, particularly when compared to most previous work, relatively large samples.…”

I want it and I want it now: Using a temporal discounting paradigm to examine predictors of consumer impulsivity

“…Thus, discount rates measure the subjective 'cost' of delaying immediate gratification. In the matching paradigm of intertemporal choice methodology (e.g., Benzion et al, 1989), respondents match the utility of a good to be consumed now (e.g., £100) with a (larger) delayed good of the same type in the future (e.g., £X 1 year from now), by setting X such that they are indifferent between the two choices. An annual discount rate of 50% means that a person demanded £150 as their 'price' to wait a year rather than receive £100 immediately.…”

Savings and Personal Discount Rates in a Matched Savings Program for Low‐income Families

“…The literature on how discount rates vary with other individual characteristics and demographics is less clear cut. The findings have been inconsistent across studies for age and gender differences (Anderson and Gugerty 2009;Anderson and Nevitte 2006;Ashraf, Karlan, and Yin 2006;Benzion, Rapoport, and Yagil 1989;Harrison, Lau, and Williams 2002;Lawrance 1991). Tanaka et al (2001) found that age was negatively related to discount rates, while in other developing and transition country studies age was insignificant (Bauer, Chytilova, and Morduch 2008;Nielson 2001;Pender 1996).…”