Abstract
Historically, time preferences are modelled by assuming constant discounting, which implies a constant level of impatience. The prevailing empirical finding, however, is decreasing impatience (DI), meaning that levels of impatience decrease over time. Theoretically, such changes in impatience are crucial to understand behavior and self-control problems. Very few methods exist to measure DI without being restricted to or confounded by certain assumptions about the discounting function or utility curve. One such measure is the recently introduced DI-index, which has been applied to both monetary and health outcomes. The DI-index quantifies the deviation from constant impatience and is flexible enough to capture both increasing and decreasing impatience. In this study, we apply the DI-index to measure impatience for health outcomes in a reference-dependent framework. That is, we measure impatience for both health gains and health losses compared to a reference-point, in individual and societal settings, using a within-subjects design (n = 98). We allowed for both positive and negative discounting, since negative discounting has been observed for losses (i.e. preferring to incur losses earlier rather than later) in earlier work. To capture changes in time inconsistency when subjects show negative discounting (i.e. patience), we modify the DI-index to a decreasing (im)patience (DIP)-index, which can be applied without loss of generality. As in earlier work, we observe large heterogeneity in time consistency; i.e., a mix of decreasing, increasing and constant (im)patience. Across all DIP-indices elicited, increasing impatience was the modal preference for those satisfying impatience, and decreasing patience for those satisfying patience. No systematic differences were observed between health gains and losses or between societal and individual outcomes. This suggests that for health outcomes both patient and impatient individuals assign more importance to time differences delayed further in the future.
Highlights
Many things in life will require waiting, as these outcomes will occur later in time
Given that negative discounting was frequently observed for losses (e.g. 6, 8), the procedure to elicit the decreasing impatience (DI)-index was modified to enable it to detect changes in the level of negative discounting
This modification yielded the decreasing patience (DP)-index, and combining both yielded a DIPindex, which can reflect both changes in impatience and patience
Summary
Many things in life will require waiting, as these outcomes will occur later in time. This holds for both good outcomes, such as a coveted holiday, monetary gains or recuperating from. When making decisions about such outcomes, we have to make intertemporal trade-offs, i.e. trading off later against sooner consequences. We may make choices such as speeding in the car, eating unhealthily, or drinking excessively knowing that their possible negative consequences will only occur later in time. We may choose to exercise, do household administration or pay taxes in time, where we may have to wait to receive the positive consequences of such choices
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