Behavioral Biases Are Temporally Stable
70 Pages Posted: 9 Nov 2020
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Behavioral Biases Are Temporally Stable
Behavioral Biases are Temporally Stable
Date Written: September 19, 2020
Abstract
Social scientists often consider temporal stability when assessing the usefulness of a construct and its measures, but whether behavioral biases display such stability is relatively unknown. We estimate stability for 25 biases, in a nationally representative sample, using repeated elicitation three years apart. Bias level indicators are largely stable in the aggregate and within-person. Within-person inter-temporal rank correlations imply moderate stability and increase dramatically when using other biases as instrumental variables. Additional results reinforce three key inferences: biases are stable, accounting for classical measurement error in bias elicitation data is important, and eliciting multiple measures of multiple biases is valuable.
JEL Classification: C36, C81, D90, E70
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation