Sweet self-deception

People have a tendency to procrastinate when faced with aversive tasks—but they also procrastinate in relation to beneficial matters whose rewards are instantaneous. If agents value present anticipations of future consumption, revision of consumption plans may be viewed as a benign form of self-deception. We consider a minimal generalization of the Samuelson discounted utility model to allow for utility linked to next period consumption. Agents are assumed to vary with respect to their sophistication. In this context, commitment and self-control are obstacles to the pursuit of increased utility. We also examine different environments that are likely to facilitate repeated revisions.     

Elicitation using multiple price list formats

We examine the properties of a popular method for eliciting choices and values from experimental subjects, the multiple price list format. The main advantage of this format is that it is relatively transparent to subjects and provides simple incentives for truthful revelation. The main disadvantages are that it only elicits interval responses, and could be susceptible to framing effects. We consider extensions to address and evaluate these concerns. We conclude that although there are framing effects, they can be controlled for with a design that allows for them. We also find that the elicitation of risk attitudes is sensitive to procedures, subject pools, and the format of the multiple price list table, but that the qualitative findings that participants are generally risk averse is robust. The elicitation of discount rates appear less sensitive to details of the experimental design. Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at . JEL Classification C9, D81, D91 An erratum to this article is available at .     

Non-cooperative exploitation of multi-cohort fisheries—The role of gear selectivity in the North-East Arctic cod fishery

North-East Arctic cod is shared by Russia and Norway. Taking its multi-cohort structure into account, how would optimal management look like? How would non-cooperative exploitation limit the obtainable profits? To which extent could the strategic situation explain today’s over-harvesting? Simulation of a detailed bio-economic model reveals that the mesh size should be significantly increased, resulting not only in a doubling of economic gains, but also in a biologically healthier age-structure of the stock. The Nash equilibrium is close to the current regime. Even when effort is fixed to its optimal level, the non-cooperative choice of gear selectivity leads to a large dissipation of rents.