Spending Time versus Spending Money

Ben Franklin warned all who would listen that time is money and economists ever since have concurred. Although we agree that an understanding of the opportunity costs of time is important to making good decisions, in this research we find systematic differences in the way that people ex ante spend time versus money and ex post differences in how they evaluate decision outcomes experienced after spending time or money. Specifically, people ex post are able to more easily accommodate negative outcomes by adjusting the value of their temporal inputs. Also, ex ante people are willing to spend more time for higher risk, higher return options whereas when spending money the pattern is reversed and the more standard pattern of risk aversion is observed. The inherent ambiguity of the value of time promotes accommodation and rationalization and may explain the rather obvious observation that most people are a lot more willing to waste time than money. Spending Time versus Spending Money Benjamin Franklin said, “Remember time is money ” implying that time is