Time discounting, health statuses, and addictive consumption
The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate how health statuses and addictive consumption are related to three aspects of time discounting: (i) present bias, induced by declining impatience or hyperbolic discounting; (ii) the sign effect, in that discount rates for future losses are lower than those for future gains; and (iii) impatience, measured by the overall discount rate.
Data/Methods:
Our research uses an original nationwide Internet survey, called the Japan Internet Survey on Preferences Relating to Time and Risk 2010 (JPTR 2010), which is conducted to 2,387 Japanese adults in October 2010. In this survey, various questions regarding time and risk preferences, health statuses, addictive consumption, and economic, social, and demographic attributes are asked to respondents.
We identify hyperbolic discounters by two questions regarding immediate future trade-offs and distant future trade-offs for hypothetical monetary rewords. The hyperbolic discounters are classified into two types, naive hyperbolic discounters, who misconceive themselves as being time-consistent, and sophisticated hyperbolic discounters, who recognize themselves as being time-inconsistent, according to implementation for the plan to do the assignment in their childhood. A variable for the incidence of the sign effect is constructed by using questions for intertemporal choices for future receipts and future payments of hypothetical money. The degree of impatience for each respondent is quantified by four questions for intemporal choices used above to construct variables for hyperbolic discounting and the incidence of the sign effect.
The relations between time preferences and health status (e.g., obesity and dental health) and addictive behavior (e.g., smoking, drinking, and gambling) are examined by estimating econometric models.
Results/Expected results:
In this study, four hypotheses will be examined. First, hyperbolic discounting has negative impacts on health statuses and positive impacts on addictive consumption. Second, these impacts are stronger for naive hyperbolic discounters than sophisticated hyperbolic discounters. Third, the degree of impatience negatively affects health statuses and positively affects addictive consumption. Fourth, the incidence of the sign effect increases person's health statuses and reduces addictive consumption. The validity of these hypotheses will be shown by analyzing original survey data mentioned above.