Risk Preferences Are Not Time Preferences: Reply

Abstract

Can the well-known experimental phenomenon of present-bias in intertemporal choice be confounded with the risks associated with receiving payment? Can measurements of risk preferences be used to represent desires for smoothness in intertemporal payments? In our two 2012 papers in this journal we explored these two questions and found the answer to the first to be yes and the second to be no. We feel the three papers inspired by our work and published here underscore these arguments and point to interesting new possibilities for modeling and measuring risk over time. (JEL C91, D81, D91)