Incentives, Protection, and Time Consistency

An investigation of individual preferences: consistency across incentives and stability over time

This study compares individual preferences across incentives (i.e., hypothetical vs. real incentives) and over time (i.e. elicitation at two different points in time) in a choice experiment involving charitable donating decisions. We provide evidence of hypothetical bias but little evidence of instability of individual giving. There is significant heterogeneity in individual preferences, with r...

Time Discounting and Time Consistency

Time discounting is the phenomenon that a desired result in the future is perceived as less valuable than the same result now. Economic theories can take this psychological fact into account in several ways. In the economic literature the most widely used type of additive time discounting is exponential discounting. In exponential discounting, the fall of valuation depends by a constant factor ...

Economic Incentives: Options for Environmental Protection

Patent Protection, Complementary Assets, and Firms' Incentives for Technology Licensing

This paper analyzes the relationship between technology licensing and the effectiveness of patent protection. Using the 1994 Carnegie Mellon survey on industrial R&D in the United States, we develop and test a simple structural model in which the patenting and licensing decisions are jointly determined. We find that increases in the effectiveness of patent protection increases licensing propens...

Economic Incentives for Environmental Protection: Integrating Theory and Practice