Dynamic Inconsistency in Food Choice: Experimental Evidence from Two Food Deserts
- Creators
- Sadoff, Sally
- Samek, Anya
- Sprenger, Charles
Abstract
We conduct field experiments to investigate dynamic inconsistency and commitment demand in food choice. In two home grocery delivery programs, we document substantial dynamic inconsistency between advance and immediate choices. When given the option to commit to their advance choices, around half of subjects take it up. Commitment demand is negatively correlated with dynamic inconsistency, suggesting those with larger self-control problems are less likely to be aware thereof. We evaluate the welfare consequences of dynamic inconsistency and commitment policies with utility measures based on advance, immediate, and unambiguous choices. Simply offering commitment has limited welfare (and behavioural) consequences under all measures.
Additional Information
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Review of Economic Studies Limited. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model). Received: 01 April 2018; Accepted: 01 May 2019; Published: 20 May 2019. This project was funded by a grant from the USDA BECR center, a USDA Cooperative agreement, grant #G-2015-14107 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and generous donations from the Understanding America Study (UAS) panel members at USC. We thank Terri Zhu at Louis' Groceries and Teresa Blanco at Northgate Gonzalez Market for helping us in the field. For helpful comments, we thank Stefano DellaVigna, David Laibson, and numerous seminar and conference participants. We thank Andre Gray, Dustin Pashouwer and undergraduate students at the Behavioral and Experimental Economics research group for research assistance. This research was conducted with IRB approval from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Southern California. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding sources or the UAS.Attached Files
Submitted - Dynamic_Inconsistency_in_Food_Choice.pdf
Supplemental Material - rdz030_supplementary_data.zip
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:3bd05267a5c851c2acac32b7bf043d9f
|
1.2 MB | Preview Download |
|
md5:90baa8341fc1bbc6dd4c790ff826f1af
|
2.9 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 104500
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20200722-085421301
- G-2015-14107
- Department of Agriculture
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- University of Southern California
- Created
-
2020-07-22Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field