Title: Excusing Myopia：The Role of Risk

Speaker: Wenbo Zou - Nankai University

https://sites.google.com/view/wenbo-zou/home 

Date: Tuesday, 20th July 2021

Time: 4:00-5:30pm

Location：Room 311 Hong Yuan Building

Abstract:

The future is more uncertainty than the present. Existing literature has shown that people act impatiently (or with present bias) at least partly because of their aversion to future risk. While this behavior could be fully rationalized by standard economic models, the current paper demonstrates a novel mechanism that individuals use risk as an excuse to postpone pains and expedite rewards. In a laboratory experiment, participants evaluate risky payoffs for today and risky payoffs for a future date, both in effort-provision and monetary outcomes. When the valuation decisions involve no intertemporal tradeoff, they respond similarly to present risk and future risk. By contrast, when the valuation takes the form of intertemporal decision- making, impatient (or present-biased) individuals act more averse to present (future) risk in effort-provision (monetary outcomes), and less averse to future (present) risk in effort- provision (monetary outcomes). Such biased responses to risk make these individuals choose future effort-provision and present monetary reward more often, consistent with excuse-driven responses to risk.