Abstract
The thesis investigates the ability of “less money sooner or more money later” reward experiments to uncover present biased preferences by analysing some of the most notable contributions on the subject. Utility functions exclusively map consumption, and since monetary rewards need not be consumed when they are received, they might not successfully uncover the underlying preferences of individuals. Even student subjects, who are hard pressed financially, can typically make use of funds from low interest student loans to consume any attainable consumption allocation from the sooner reward by choosing the later reward. The expected preference for the later reward might be mitigated if individuals narrowly bracket their choices, but to what degree this happens is not clear. Findings show that some individuals act as if present biased in experiments. If this behaviour does not stem from present bias, there must be other underlying reasons for this behaviour. The thesis briefly discovers two alternative effects in uncertainty and similarity which might explain behaviour often attributed to present biased preferences, as well as how their effects are possibly related to specific features of the monetary rewards.