American Economic Review Vol. 106 No. 5 2016

Beyond Beta-Delta: The Emerging Economics of Personal Plans

John Beshears¹; Katherine L. Milkman²; Joshua Schwartzstein¹

¹ Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163 (e-mail: ) · ² The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania, 566 Jon M. Huntsman Hall, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 (e-mail: )

Abstract

People make personal plans regarding whether, when, where, and how to undertake certain actions. We discuss three questions related to personal plans. First, what are the effects of plans on behavior? Second, when are plans formed? Third, how do plans deviate from optimality? For each of these questions, we (a) offer a brief overview of research that sheds light on the issue and (b) identify gaps in current knowledge. We emphasize connections to the growing theoretical literature that gives personal plans a substantive role, but we conclude that more research is needed, especially on the latter two questions we cover.

DOI

10.1257/aer.p20161100

Volume

106

Issue

5

Pages

430-434

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

Cite

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