Myong-Il Kang
Korea University, Japan
Title: Time Discounting, Present Biases, And Health-Related Behaviors: Evidence From Japan
Biography
Biography: Myong-Il Kang
Abstract
Human health is considered the outcome of intertemporal choices under trade offs between a small immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. Health-related behaviors are thus affected by personal time preferences. Based on an internet-based survey conducted on Japanese adults, we contribute to the literature by incorporating the multifaceted nature of time discounting in an analysis of the associations between time preference and health-related behaviors. We find that, first, less patient respondents tend to exhibit worse health-related attributes. Second, present bias, which is measured by the degree of declining impatience, is positively associated with unhealthy behaviors for naïve respondents, who are unaware of their self-control problem. Third, such associations cannot be found in sophisticates, who are aware of that. As a policy implication, direct intervention policies, including “nudging,” are more effective than a commitment device provision in correcting the unhealthy behaviors due to present bias. Fourth, the sign effect, wherein future losses are discounted at a lower rate than future gains, is negatively associated with unhealthy outcomes, although at weak statistical significance levels.
