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  • 2023
  • Working Paper

Complexity and Hyperbolic Discounting

By: Benjamin Enke, Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea
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... View Details
Keywords: Hyperbolic Discounting; Present Bias; Bounded Rationality; Cognitive Uncertainty; Behavioral Finance
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  • 2005
  • Article

Early Decisions: A Regulatory Framework

By: John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson and Brigitte C. Madrian
We describe a regulatory framework that helps consumers who have difficulty sticking to their own long-run plans. Early Decision regulations help long-run preferences prevail by allowing consumers to partially commit to their long-run goals, making it harder for a... View Details
Keywords: Hyperbolic Discounting; Self-control; Commitment; Consumer Behavior; Taxation; Attitudes
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  • 2021
  • Working Paper

Time Dependence and Preference: Implications for Compensation Structure and Shift Scheduling

By: Doug J. Chung, Byungyeon Kim and Byoung G. Park
This study jointly examines agents’ time dependence—period effects within instantaneous utility—and time preference—behavior on discounting future utility. The study considers the start- and end-of-period effects for time dependence and exponential and hyperbolic... View Details
Keywords: Time Preferences; Present Bias; Hyperbolic Discounting; Compensation; Dynamic Structural Models; Identification; Time Management; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Performance; Compensation and Benefits
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  • 2019
  • Working Paper

Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk
Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details
Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Hyperbolic Discounting; Fiscal Rules; Sovereign Finance
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  • August 2013
  • Article

The Timing of Pay

By: Christopher Parsons and E. Van Wesep
There exists large and persistent variation in not only how, but when employees are paid, a fact unexplained by existing theory. This paper develops a simple model of optimal pay timing for firms. When workers have self-control problems, they under-save... View Details
Keywords: Payday Lending; Hyperbolic Discounting; Self-control Problems; Pay Frequency; Payday Loan Legislation; Paycheck Frequency; Time Inconsistency; Wages; Behavior; Employee Relationship Management
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  • 2010
  • Working Paper

Do Bonuses Enhance Sales Productivity? A Dynamic Structural Analysis of Bonus-Based Compensation Plans

By: Doug J. Chung, Thomas J. Steenburgh and K. Sudhir
We estimate a dynamic structural model of sales force response to a bonus based compensation plan. The paper has two main methodological innovations: First, we implement empirically the method proposed by Arcidiacono and Miller (2010) to accommodate unobserved latent... View Details
Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Performance Productivity; Mathematical Methods; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives
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  • 2023
  • Working Paper

Cognitive Uncertainty in Intertemporal Choice

By: Benjamin Enke and Thomas Graeber
This paper studies the relevance of cognitive uncertainty – subjective uncertainty over one's utility-maximizing action – for understanding and predicting intertemporal choice. The main idea is that when people are cognitively noisy, such as when a decision is complex,... View Details
Keywords: Cognitive Uncertainty; Intertemporal Choice; Cognition and Thinking; Complexity; Decision Choices and Conditions
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  • 2023
  • Working Paper

Complexity and Time

By: Benjamin Enke, Thomas Graeber and Ryan Oprea
We provide experimental evidence that core intertemporal choice anomalies -- including extreme short-run impatience, structural estimates of present bias, hyperbolicity and transitivity violations -- are driven by complexity rather than time or risk preferences. First,... View Details
Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Motivation and Incentives
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  • 02 Nov 2010
  • First Look

First Look: November 2, 2010

structural model using field data. This is because, quarterly and annual bonuses help generate the instruments necessary to identify both discount factors in a hyperbolic View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
  • 08 Jan 2008
  • First Look

First Look: January 8, 2008

hyperbolic discounting and shows in the field that the impact of intrapersonal conflict can be large in magnitude. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-099.pdf How Is Foreign Aid Spent?... View Details
Keywords: Martha Lagace