Working Paper: NBER ID: w12278
Authors: Emre Ozdenoren; Stephen Salant; Dan Silverman
Abstract: Common intuition and experimental psychology suggest that the ability to self-regulate, willpower, is a depletable resource. We investigate the behavior of an agent who optimally consumes a cake (or paycheck or workload) over time and who recognizes that restraining his consumption too much would exhaust his willpower and leave him unable to manage his consumption. Unlike prior models of self-control, a model with willpower depletion can explain the increasing consumption sequences observable in high frequency data (and corresponding laboratory findings), the apparent links between unrelated self-control behaviors, and the altered economic behavior following imposition of cognitive loads. At the same time, willpower depletion provides an alternative explanation for a taste for commitment, intertemporal preference reversals, and procrastination. Accounting for willpower depletion thus provides a more unified theory of time preference. It also provides an explanation for anomalous intratemporal behaviors such as low correlations between health-related activities.
Keywords: willpower; self-control; intertemporal choice; cognitive resources
JEL Codes: D9; J2; I1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Willpower depletion (D91) | Decreased self-control in unrelated areas (D91) |
| Exerting self-control (D91) | Willpower depletion (D91) |
| Willpower depletion (D91) | Negative correlations in health-related behaviors (e.g., smoking and drinking) (I12) |
| Willpower depletion (D91) | Preference for commitment (D11) |
| Willpower depletion (D91) | Intertemporal preference reversals (D15) |
| Decreased self-control (D91) | Increased consumption rates over time (D15) |