title: Sweet sixteen: changing time preferences in the transition from middle school to high school, for different scenarios.
abstract: Teenagers earn, save and spend large amounts of money. Therefore, understanding teenagers' time preference and how it affects their economic behavior is very important. The current study investigates time preferences of high school and middle school students, and the effect of different intertemporal choice scenarios on teenagers' subjective discount rate. One scenario used a standard intertemporal choice question while the other was a wage scenario. We found higher future orientation (lower subjective discount rate) among high school students than among middle school students when using a standard scenario but found no difference between groups in the wage scenario. For both groups, we found the subjective discount rates increased when the teenagers are asked to delay receipt of wages they earned by working (wage scenario). Other variables, like participation in sports and an allowance given by parents, were found to affect teenagers' time preferences.
authors.affiliation: The School of Business Administration, The College of Management Academic Studies, Israel; Economics and Management Department, The Open University of Israel, Israel.
authors.forename: Eyal
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lahav
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shavit
authors.forename: Uri
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Benzion
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D065786:Delay Discounting; D060909:Economics, Behavioral; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits
keywords: delay discounting; discount rates; teenagers; time preference