Can't wait to celebrate: Holiday euphoria, impulsive behavior and time preference

The pre-holiday effect is a well-documented phenomenon, especially for financial markets. The behavioral explanation for the pre-holiday effect is called “holiday euphoria.” In the current paper, we examine how the holiday period influences the time preference of students, by comparing their subjective discount rate before and after the Passover holiday in Israel. Although there is considerable research on the pre-holiday effect and its influence on investors in the capital market, we are unaware of any prior research on the influence of the pre-holiday effect on time preference. Our results suggest that holiday euphoria induces impulsive behavior, making people more present-oriented (having a higher subjective discount rate) before the holiday. We also show how holiday euphoria affects people's immediate mood (feeling down in the present), and how it is affected by their level of pessimism.