Present Bias and Welfare

Last registered on December 29, 2019
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Present Bias and Welfare
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003861
Initial registration date
February 06, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
February 19, 2019, 3:58 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
December 29, 2019, 1:52 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Germany
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Lukas Wenner
Affiliation
University of Cologne
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Felix Kölle
PI Affiliation
University of Cologne
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-02-12
End date
2020-06-30
Keywords
Other, Welfare
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
When faced with intertemporal trade-offs, many economic decision makers display a present bias, that is, their desire for immediate gratification leads them to become disproportionally more impatient when choices directly affect the present. Evidence for this comes, for example, from financial decision-making, exercising and effort provision, supporting the notion that intertemporal decision-making is often time-inconsistent. While the evidence for the existence of present bias is numerous, the question of how to interpret time-inconstistency in general and present bias in particular, from a welfare perspective remains open. In this project, we plan to shed light on this topic by investigating, through the means of a laboratory experiment, whether present bias should be treated as a true expression of preferences or as an error which should be avoided and (potentially) prevented by others through paternalistic actions.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Kölle, Felix and Lukas Wenner. 2019. "Present Bias and Welfare." AEA RCT Registry. December 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3861-1.1
Former Citation
Kölle, Felix and Lukas Wenner. 2019. "Present Bias and Welfare." AEA RCT Registry. December 29. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3861/history/59755
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
See Analysis Plan (pdf)
Intervention Start Date
2019-02-12
Intervention End Date
2019-02-27

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
See Analysis Plan (pdf)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We conduct a lab experiment in which participants make a series of allocation choices of real effort tasks over time. We also elicit beliefs about how they expect others to make these choices. For more details, please see the analysis plan.
Experimental Design Details
See Analysis Plan (pdf)
Randomization Method
The experiment employs a within-subject design. All participants go through the same tasks in randomized order. See the pre-analysis plan for more details.
Randomization Unit
Randomization is done at the individual level, because the design is within-subject.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
approx. 150 participants.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Each of the 150 participants makes 60 choices in total (over the three dates of the experiment).
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
N/A because the experiment uses a within-subject design. Hence, there is only one treatment arm.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
See Analysis Plan (pdf)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Ethics Research Committee of the Faculty of Economics, Management and Social Science at the University of Cologne
IRB Approval Date
2019-02-06
IRB Approval Number
N/A
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials