Now or later?.
1000 TL today, or more at some point later? How big does the difference have to be before you are willing to wait?
Original study
- Thaler, R. (1981). Some empirical evidence on dynamic inconsistency. Economics Letters, 8(3), 201–207. Source
- Kirby, K. N., & Maraković, N. N. (1996). Delay-discounting probabilistic rewards: Rates decrease as amounts increase. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(1), 100–104. Source
- Kirby, K. N., Petry, N. M., & Bickel, W. K. (1999). Heroin addicts have higher discount rates for delayed rewards than non-drug-using controls. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128(1), 78–87. Source
- Frederick, S., Loewenstein, G., & O'Donoghue, T. (2002). Time discounting and time preference: A critical review. Journal of Economic Literature, 40(2), 351–401. Source
- Laibson, D. (1997). Golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), 443–478. Source
- Johnson, M. W., & Bickel, W. K. (2002). Within-subject comparison of real and hypothetical money rewards in delay discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 77(2), 129–146. Source
- Johnson, M. W., & Bickel, W. K. (2008). An algorithm for identifying nonsystematic delay-discounting data. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 16(3), 264–274. Source
- Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye. (n.d.). Consumer prices [Data table; source: TurkStat]. Retrieved October 3, 2026. Source
Our adaptation
An adaptation of intertemporal choice tasks (Thaler, 1981; Kirby and Maraković, 1996) using bisection. In the first three rounds, the future amount judged equivalent to 1,000 TL today is found for delays of 1 week, 1 month and 1 year with a five-step bisection (first offer 1,500 TL, upper bounds 2,000, 3,000 and 5,000 TL, amounts rounded to 10 TL). Round 4 asks about the same one-day wait both between today and tomorrow and between one year and one year and a day from now (1,000 vs 1,050 TL).
Differences from the original study
- Money is hypothetical.
- In periods of high inflation a high rate can be partly reasonable; the annual rate alone should not be read as 'impatience'.
- Five bisection steps locate the indifference point within a coarse range; values at the extremes are censored.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
ind_1 | number | Indifference amount (TL): the future amount judged equivalent to 1,000 TL today; ind_1 = 1 week, ind_2 = 1 month, ind_3 = 1 year. (item 1) |
ind_2 | number | Indifference amount (TL): the future amount judged equivalent to 1,000 TL today; ind_1 = 1 week, ind_2 = 1 month, ind_3 = 1 year. (item 2) |
ind_3 | number | Indifference amount (TL): the future amount judged equivalent to 1,000 TL today; ind_1 = 1 week, ind_2 = 1 month, ind_3 = 1 year. (item 3) |
k_1 | number | Hyperbolic discounting parameter from V = A / (1 + kD): k = (indifference amount / 1,000 − 1) / D (D in days: 7, 30, 365); computed on the server. (item 1) |
k_2 | number | Hyperbolic discounting parameter from V = A / (1 + kD): k = (indifference amount / 1,000 − 1) / D (D in days: 7, 30, 365); computed on the server. (item 2) |
k_3 | number | Hyperbolic discounting parameter from V = A / (1 + kD): k = (indifference amount / 1,000 − 1) / D (D in days: 7, 30, 365); computed on the server. (item 3) |
pb_near | now | later | Round 4, near pair: 1,000 TL today (now) or 1,050 TL tomorrow (later). |
pb_far | now | later | Round 4, far pair: 1,000 TL in 1 year (now) or 1,050 TL in 1 year and 1 day (later). |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server requires all three indifference amounts between 1,000 and 10,000 TL and computes k itself. Choosing 'today' in the near pair but waiting in the far pair indicates present bias; the reverse can be reported separately as inconsistency.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
This experiment has no leaderboard score. The crowd result is the median indifference amount and k by delay and the preference reversal rate.
Version notes
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.