Essays on Self-Control

This dissertation concerns methods to test whether or not self-control

is costly, the form of temptation, and the affects different assumptions

about costly self-control and temptation have on optimal borrowing

and saving mechanisms. The second chapter shows that costly self-control

and temptation can be differentiated from changing impatience in a

stochastic income consumption-savings environment. The third chapter

describes an experiment to test whether subjects have time inconsistent

preferences, whether self-control is costly, and if so, whether the

cost of self-control is time dependent. The fourth chapter describes

the affects on the optimal borrowing and savings mechanisms that assumptions

about the myopia of temptation and the strength of costly self-control

have.