Collective Intertemporal Decisions and Heterogeneity in Groups

Daniela Glätzle-Rützler, Philipp Lergetporer and Matthias Sutter

No 14025, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Many important intertemporal decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. What happens to collective decisions when there is internal conflict about the tradeoff between present and future has not been thoroughly investigated so far. We study experimentally the causal effect of group members' heterogeneous payoffs from waiting on intertemporal choices. We find that three-person groups behave more patiently than individuals. This effect stems from the presence of at least one group member with a high payoff from waiting. We analyze additional treatments, group chat content, and survey data to uncover the mechanism through which heterogeneity in groups increases patience.

Keywords: patience; time preferences; group decisions; payoff heterogeneity; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 C92 D03 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Games and Economic Behavior, 2021, 130, 131-147

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Related works:
Journal Article: Collective intertemporal decisions and heterogeneity in groups (2021)
Working Paper: Collective Intertemporal Decisions and Heterogeneity in Groups (2021)
Working Paper: Collective Intertemporal Decisions and Heterogeneity in Groups (2019)
Working Paper: Collective intertemporal decisions and heterogeneity in groups (2019)
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