Abstract
Households make economic tradeoffs over time. We seek to understand how a spouse’s individual time preference influences joint household decisions. We conduct a field experiment with 94 pairs of couples in the United States. Each subject makes a series of choices between payoffs received at two different times for oneself and then jointly with their spouse as a household. Results from our sample indicate that husbands do not have more influence than their wives do on the joint decision. This finding differs from previous conclusions drawn from data collected in developing countries. We further find that differences in education, age, and earned income do not provide spouses with additional bargaining power. However, the relative power shifts based on individual preferences related to patience, savings, risk tolerance, and which spouse controls the household income. Lastly, our data supports assortative mating based on time preferences, but we do not find evidence supportive of spousal socialization, spousal selection, or changing matching patterns on time preferences.
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Notes
We only had one same sex couple participate in the experiment. As a result the sample size for the category of same sex couples was not sufficient for statistical analysis.
Risk neutral and risk seeking subjects should always choose the corner allocation (0 tokens to either the sooner or the later time).
Sample screen shots for the Excel program are presented in Appendix B and C along with experimental instructions.
As of May 2017, all payments have been processed and delivered.
Our design does not allow us to estimate a complex joint decision model, such as in Browning & Chiappori (1988). Their framework assumes observation of price and quantity of consumption goods for each individual and public account under one household budget constraint. In our design, the maximization of individual utility and joint utility is not under one household budget constraint. By randomly paying only one task at the end of the experiment, the individual allocation and joint allocation do not have the same tradeoff an agent would face in a non-unitary household decision model.
Our results are not meaningfully different when dropping couples with a member that has a monotonicity violation.
Yang and Carlsson (2016) examine in detail the potential explanatory factors for these choice shifts outside the range of the couple’s individual decisions, as well as an in-depth discussion of the implications of these shifts. We tested and found that couples with these choice shifts were not influencing our results.
We additionally tested whether obese couples had different discount rates than non-obese couples, but we were also unable to reject the null hypothesis of no differences between discount rates (p = 0.5413).
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the research assistance from Ming Ge and financial support from the Hemingway New Faculty Grant at Weber State University. We thank Greg Howard, David Huffman, Lucas Rentchler, Alistair Wilson and seminar participants at University of Pittsburgh summer research seminar for helpful comments. All errors here in are our own.
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Appendix A: Additional analyses
Appendix A: Additional analyses
Appendix B: Front and back of recruiting door flyer
Appendix C: Experimental instruction for individual tasks:
Welcome!
Thank you for coming to today’s research session. We are studying joint financial decision for urban households. This research is voluntary, you are free to opt out at any point. You will make choices and answer survey questions in the next one and half hours. At the end of the session, each of you will receive a $25 completion bonus in cash. Additional earnings are possible based on the choices you make during the research session. Please follow the instructions carefully.
Your anonymity is assured as we will not reveal any information about your choices or your identity to other participants (or anyone else) before or after the research session. During the session, please turn off your cell phones and any other electronic devices. Please do not talk to any of the other participants (including your spouse) unless instructed to do so. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and a researcher will come to assist you.
There are two parts in today’s experiment. One of the two parts will be randomly chosen to determine your additional earnings.
In Part 1, you and your spouse will make decisions independently and in separate rooms. But first, we will read the instructions together.
The payment that is generated from Part 1 is either paid in cash today or will be given to you as a Visa debit card with the payment amount loaded on it. The Visa card will have your full name printed on it, so only you will be able to use it. The Visa card can be used anywhere that accepts credit or debit payments with no additional fees.
In Part 1, you will make 37 decisions. If Part 1 is randomly chosen for additional earnings, then one out of the decisions will be randomly chosen to determine the additional amount. Moreover, only one of the household members’ decisions will lead to additional earnings, and that will be randomly determined as well.
Participant Instruction-Part 1
The first decision will ask you to allocate $10 between you and your spouse. The amount you enter on the computer, will go to you and the remaining amount will go to your spouse. If this exercise is chosen for payment, then a cash payment will be given to you and your spouse today after the experiment. The example below shows you a picture of the computer screen that you will use to enter your decision. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of your and your spouse’s earnings. Please only enter in whole numbers.
The next 9 decisions will ask you to allocate 100 tokens that can be exchanged to money on two future dates: 1 week from now and 1 year plus 1 week from now. Typically, the tokens you allocate for 1 year are worth more money than tokens you allocate for 1 week. If one of these 9 exercises is randomly drawn for payment, you will receive a Visa card, with your name on it, on each of the two dates.
In your handout, notice that today’s date is highlighted in yellow on the calendar. The date for 1 week from now is highlighted in green and the date for 1 year from now is highlighted in blue.
Please now look at the following example of a decision screen. On the screen, you will see the token exchange rate. In this example, you see that 1 token = $0.05 paid in 1 week, and 1 token = $0.50 paid in 1 year. You can enter the amount of tokens you want to allocate into the blank field for 1 week. The remaining tokens will automatically be allocated for 1 year. You can adjust your choices as much as you want and the money payment in 1 week and 1 year will be automatically calculated and displayed on the right hand side of the screen each time you enter the token amount. Once you are happy with your allocation decision, you may click on the red “Next Question” button to finalize your decision and go on to the next decision screen. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of your earnings associated with your decision. Please do not close the tablet keypad.
For example, if you allocate all 100 tokens to 1 week, according to the exchange rate in the example above, you will earn 100*$0.05 = $5 in 1 week and nothing in 1 year. If instead you allocate 100 tokens to 1 year, you will earn 100*$0.5 = $50 in 1 year and nothing in 1 week. You are also free to allocate some tokens to 1 week and some to 1 year. If you allocate 50 tokens to 1 week and 50 tokens to 1 year, you will receive 50*$0.05 = $2.50 in 1 week and 50*$0.50 = $25 in 1 year. Please only enter in whole numbers.
There will be 9 decisions for you to make with different token exchange rates, so please pay attention to the different exchange rates on each screen.
Once you finish these 9 decisions, you will see a wait screen. When everyone in the room finishes these 9 decisions, we will advance to the next 9 decisions together.
We will give you a chance to practice. There will be 3 practice exercises. You may experiment with different token allocation decisions to see how the process works!
[NOTE: Data generated based on the instructions of this page is not part of this paper.]
The next 9 decisions are almost identical to the previous 9 decisions. The only difference is that the 1-week payment will be added to your own Visa account and sent to you in 1 week, while the 1-year payment will be added to your spouse’s Visa account and sent to him/her in 1 year. So in short, 1 week for you, 1 year for your spouse. The example below shows you a picture of the computer screen that you will use to enter your decisions. Notice that the payment that goes to your spouse in 1 year will be displayed on the bar chart in blue. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of earnings associated with your decision.
[NOTE: Data generated based on the instructions of this page is not part of this paper.]
The next 9 decisions are again almost identical to the previous 9 decisions. The only difference is that the 1-week payment will be added to your spouse’s Visa account and sent to him/her in 1 week, while the 1-year payment will be added to your own Visa account and sent to you in 1 year. So in short, 1 week for your spouse, 1 year for you. The example below shows you a picture of the computer screen that you will use to enter your decisions. Notice that the payment that goes to your spouse in 1 week will be displayed on the bar chart in blue. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of earnings associated with your decision.
The final 9 decisions are again almost identical to the previous 9 decisions. The only difference is that the 1-week payment will be added to your spouse’s Visa account and sent to him/her in 1 week, while the 1-year payment will also be added to your spouse’s Visa account and sent to him/her in 1 year. So in short, you are making the token allocation decision on your spouse’s behalf. The example below shows you a picture of the computer screen that you will use to enter your decisions. Notice that the payment that goes to your spouse in 1 week and 1 year will be displayed on the bar chart in blue. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of earnings associated with your decision.
Note, if you see a wait screen like the one below. Please do not proceed until the researcher gives you the instruction to do so.
Also note, on each decision, you may try and enter as many times as possible the tokens you would like to allocate to 1 week, but once you are happy with the outcome and click on the “next question” button, you will not be able to go back.
Finally, I want to emphasize that if Part 1 is chosen for payment, one of the decisions will be used to determine additional earnings, AND the decisions of only one member of the household will be randomly chosen as the basis of the additional payments. This means, every decision you make is important. They have an equal chance to determine your and your spouse’s earnings from this study. We will use a bingo cage to make the random draw at the end of the experiment. All Visa card payments will occur in either 1 week or 1 year from today. The Visa card will be sent to you by mail to the address you provided. For those future payments, we will provide an IOU slip stating clearly how much you are entitled to earn in 1 week and 1 year from Weber State University’s research team. You may keep this slip in your records in case you need to contact us with issues of payment (for example, you have an address change.)
After completing all 37 decisions, you will be asked to fill in a survey to provide some basic demographic information about yourself.
This is the end of Part 1 instruction. Part 2 instruction will be provided at the completion of Part 1.
Any questions at this point?
Appendix D: Experimental instruction for joint tasks:
Participant Instruction-Part 2
Thank you for completing Part 1 of the research session. Now please find a seat next to your spouse. In part 2, you will make 9 decisions. The decisions are similar to the token allocation decisions you completed in Part 1. The only difference is that you and your spouse will be able to discuss and make a joint decision. The 1-week payment will be added to a Visa card in both your and your spouse’s names and sent to your address in 1 week, while the 1-year payment will also be added to a Visa account with both of your names and sent to your address in 1 year. So in short, two of you will make the token allocation decisions together for your joint account. The example below shows you a picture of the computer screen that you will use to enter your decisions. Notice that the payment that goes to your household in 1 week and 1 year will be displayed on the bar chart in purple. Please note, you must hit the enter key to see a graphical display of earnings associated with your decision.
If Part 2 is chosen for payment, one out of the 9 decisions will be used to determine additional earnings. This means, every decision you make is important. They have an equal chance to determine your earnings from this study. We will use a bingo cage to make the random draw at the end of the experiment.
After completing all 9 decisions, you and your spouse will be asked to fill out a short survey regarding your household’s daily decision making processes.
This is the end of instruction for Part 2.
Any questions?
Appendix E: Experimental Instruction for random draw and payment
Instruction-Random draw
Thank you for completing today’s research session. Now we will use the bingo cage to complete the random drawing process.
First, we will draw a number to determine whether Part 1 or Part 2 will be used to calculate your payoffs.
(read only one of the following two conditions)
Now that Part 1 is drawn, we will draw another time to determine which household member’s decision counts for payment calculation. Then we will draw one out of the individual decisions to determine the final payoff.
OR
Now that Part 2 is drawn, we will draw one out of 9 decisions to determine the final payoff that will be made to the household together.
Instructions-Payment
Now that we have completed the random drawing process, please allow us a few minutes to check your decisions and calculate your final earnings. We will call your experimental ID number once your payment is ready. When you hear your ID number being called. Please come to the entry room to sign off for today’s study and receive your payment. For anonymity, please be seated until your ID number is called. Please bring all your personal belongings with you as you will not reenter this room after payment.
We thank you for your patience and will start the payment process as soon as possible.
Appendix F: Individual survey
-
Q1 Please enter your experiment ID number.
-
Q2 What is your gender?
○ Male (1)
○ Female (2)
○ Other (3)____________
-
Q3 How old are you?
-
Q4 What is the highest level of education you have completed?
○ High School Diploma or lower (4)
○ Associate degree (5)
○ Bachelor degree (6)
○ Graduate degree or higher (7)
-
Q5 Please specify your relationship with the partner who came to this survey session with you.
○ Married (1)
○ Not married, but living together (2)
○ Others (3)___________
-
Q6 Please enter the amount of time you currently work for pay
How many hours per week do you currently work? (1)
How many weeks per year do you work (there are 52 weeks in a year)? (2)
-
Q7 What is your personal annual income from all sources? Please do NOT include any income your spouse makes.
○ $0 to $4999 (1)
○ $5000 to $9999 (2)
○ $10,000 to $14,999 (3)
○ $15,000 to $19,999 (4)
○ $20,000 to $24,999 (5)
○ $25,000 to $29,999 (6)
○ $30,000 to $34,999 (7)
○ $35,000 to $39,999 (8)
○ $40,000 to $49,999 (9)
○ $50,000 to $59,999 (10)
○ $60,000 to $69,999 (11)
○ $70,000 or more (12)
-
Q8 What is the political party, if any, which you MOST closely identify with?
○ Tea Party (1)
○ Republican (2)
○ Democratic (3)
○ Libertarian (4)
○ Green (5)
○ Independent (6)
○ Other (7)_____________
-
Q9 Have you ever smoked a cigarette?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
-
Answer If Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Yes Is Selected
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Q10 Have you smoked a cigarette in the last 30 days?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Q11 What is your height (enter in feet and inches)
○ Feet (1)
○ Inches (2)
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Q12 What is your weight (enter in pounds, lbs.)
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Q13 The next set of questions provide an opportunity for you to explain your choices during the experiment. Which of the following things did you think about when you made your decision to get money now, versus receiving money in the future? Below indicate the importance each played in your decision. Please indicate if any of the following issues were important to you as you made your allocation choices.
I did NOT consider this at all. (1) | I considered this, but it was NOT important at all. (2) | I considered this, and it was somewhat important (3) | I considered this and it was very important (4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
I thought I might be able to turn around and invest the money I get tomorrow, at a better rate than you offered with waiting. (1) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
I thought I really needed the money tomorrow, because I have an immediate need for it. (2) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
1 year is too long in the future for me to think about. (3) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
I thought I didn’t really trust the researchers in delivering the money to me at the future date. (4) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
I thought it would be difficult to deliver the money to me in 1 year because I may no longer live at my current address. (5) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
I thought of giving the future proceeds to my children or to someone else. (6) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
Other: (7) | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
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Q14 In Part 1 of the experiment, you were asked to divide $10 between you and your spouse. Please explain the reason that you divided the money in the way that you did for this question.
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Q15 On a scale of 0 to 100, indicate how much you TRUST that the following entities will make a payment to you in 1 year. A higher number indicates greater trust.
-
______ The researchers (1)
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______ Weber State University (2)
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Q16 On a scale of 0 to 100, indicate how important you think the following statements are. A higher number always indicates greater importance (100 = very important)
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______ How important to you is the health of the natural environment (1)
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______ How important are your children’s education to you (2)
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______ How important is it that your household save money for future need of spendings (3)
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Q17 In general, would you say that your behavior and the decisions you take often involves high risk. (7-strongly agree; 6-Agree; 5-somewhat agree, 4-indifferent, 3-somewhat disagree, 2-disagree, 1-strongly disagree).
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Q18 Do you currently have any savings or investments that enable you to earn interest, or that pay some rate of return?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Q19 Do you currently have a mortgage, car loan, student loan, payday loan or credit card?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Answer If Do you currently have a mortgage, car loan, student loan, payday loan or credit card? No Is Selected
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Q20 You answered that you do not currently have a mortgage, car loan, student loan, payday loan or credit card. What do you believe is the lowest interest rate that you could borrow money at today?
-
Answer If Do you currently have a mortgage, car loan, student loan, payday loan or credit card? Yes Is Selected
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Q21 You answered that you currently have either a mortgage, car loan, student loan, payday loan or credit card. What is the lowest rate you are paying on any of these loans?
Appendix G: Joint household survey
-
Q1 Please enter both of your experiment ID number.
-
Red card participant ID (1)
-
Bue card participant ID (2)
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Q2 In your household, who manages the inc"ome of the household members? The person with the red card will simply be referred to as “Red” and the person with the blue card will be referred to as “Blue”.
○ Red turns over all income to Blue (1)
○ Blue turns over all income to Red (2)
○ We are in charge of our own income (3)
○ Each of us are in charge of a proportion of the household income (4)
○ Nobody is in charge of the household income. (5)
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Q3 In your household, who is in charge of the saving and lending decisions?
○ Red (1)
○ Blue (2)
○ Sometimes Red, sometimes Blue (3)
○ It is always a joint decision (4)
○ Neither of us is in charge. Someone else manages that (5)
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Q4 In your household, who manages the household daily spending, such as utility bills, rent, grocery bills, etc?
○ Red (1)
○ Blue (2)
○ Sometime Red, sometimes Blue (3)
○ It is always a joint decision (4)
○ Neither of us is in charge. Someone else manages that. (5)
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Q5 In your household, who makes decisions on large family purchases, such as vacation, apartment renovation, purchasing of electronic devices, etc?
○ Red (1)
○ Blue (2)
○ Sometimes Red, sometimes Blue (3)
○ It is always a joint decision (4)
○ Neither of us in charge. Someone else decides that for us. (5)
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Q6 Do you have a joint bank account?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Q7 Which year did you and your spouse (or partner) start to live in the same home?
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Q8 How many children under the age of 18 do you have together (including biological and adopted children)?
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Q9 Does your household intentionally save money out of concern for future events (family emergency, health related issues, etc)?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Q10 Does your household intentionally save money out of concerns for your children (education account, marriage gift, etc)?
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Q11 Do you have a retirement plan? This may include personal savings or employer-funded retirement (e.g., pension, 401(k), TIAA-CREF, etc.)
○ Yes (1)
○ No (2)
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Gnagey, M., Grijalva, T. & Rong, R. Spousal influence and assortative mating on time preferences: a field experiment in the USA. Rev Econ Household 18, 461–512 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09466-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-019-09466-x