Force, Movement, Intensity by Hage Ghassan;Kowal Emma;Kowal Emma;

Author:Hage, Ghassan;Kowal, Emma;Kowal, Emma;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Notes

1 Ainslie, Breakdown of Will, and Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge, provide an interesting discussion of the concept of present bias and some of its implications.

2 For mathematical convenience, the parameter β measures the inverse of present bias, that is the lower is β the greater is the individual’s degree of present bias. β is usually restricted to lie between zero and one.

3 In addition to present bias, another type of discounting is used in economics: discounting future flows of utility by the rate of time preference. Indeed this is the conventional type of discounting used in economics. However, unlike present bias, time preference does not change the mechanical nature of individual decision-making so we ignore it for this chapter.

4 It is true that as time moves on an individual comes closer to their terminal date, closer to death. This most likely implies that the benefits of dieting will become smaller, and at some date in the future the individual will no longer see a net benefit of beginning a diet on the next day. At this point an individual will settle down to planning no dieting for the rest of their life. From then on there would be no more changing of mind. But even with this outcome, for the earlier years the analysis of the model captures an important non-mechanical aspect of human behaviour. For the rest of the essay we focus on the possibility as explained by the concept of present bias of the non-mechanical behaviour.

5 ‘Almost’ because any benefits on Tuesday will come in at higher relative weight.

6 One imagines that the repeated experience of regret could change one’s behaviour. Having put off beginning a diet every day for six months, one may perhaps wake up to the weakness of one’s intentions. One may recognise that one suffers from present bias. Interestingly, O’Donohughe and Rabin, in ‘Doing it now or later’, show that this can lead to a different problem, that of preproperation, of doing things too soon because one is scared of not doing them.

7 However, in Melbourne in 2011, when food is available on every street corner, eating when one sees food is not a good idea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.