1. The term was coined by Schelling, T. C., “Egonomics, or the Art of Self-management,” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 68 (1978) 290–294Google Scholar. For references to other work by Schelling on the problem, see note 4 below.

2. See, for example, Phelps, E. S. and Pollak, R. A., “On Second-best National Saving and Game-theoretic Equilibrium Growth.” Review of Economic Studies 35 (1968) 185–199CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferejohn, J. and Page, T., “On the Foundations of Intertemporal Choice.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 60 (1978) 15–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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4. In addition to the article cited in Note 1, Schelling's writings on self-management include “The Intimate Contest for Self-command.” The Public Interest 60 (1980) 94–118Google Scholar; “Ethics, Law and the Exercise of Self-command.” In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, edited by McMurrin, S.. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, Vol. 4Google Scholar; “Self-command in Practice, in Policy, and in a Theory of Rational Choice.” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 74 (1984) 1–11.Google Scholar

5. The most extensive recent treatment is Pears, D., Motivated Irrationality. London: Oxford University Press, 1984.Google Scholar

6. Compare my introduction to The Multiple Self.

7. I discuss this problem in Ulysses and the Sirens, rev. ed. Cambridge: University Press, 1984Google Scholar, Chap. II and in “Rationality and the Emotions.” Social Science Information, 24 (1985), 375–406.Google Scholar

8. I owe the distinction between the endowment and contrast effects to A. Tversky (personal communication).

9. Solomon, R.L. and Corbit, J.D., “An Opponent-Process Theory of Motivation.” Psychological Review 81 (1974) 119–145CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; cf. also my “Rationality and the Emotions.”

10. See again my “Rationality and the Emotions.”

11. I owe the distinction between temporal externalities and time preferences to Steedman, and Krause, , op.cit.Google Scholar

12. For more extensive discussions see Hardin, R., Collective Action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1982Google Scholar; Oliver, P., Marwell, G., and Teixeira, R., “Interdependence, Group Heterogeneity and the Production of Collective Action.” American Journal of SociologyGoogle Scholar, forthcoming; and my “Rationality, Morality and Collective Action.” Ethics, forthcoming.

13. Olson, M., The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965.Google Scholar

14. See, for instance, Barry, B., “Comment on Elster.” Ethics, forthcoming (cf. note 12 above).Google Scholar

15. For an extensive discussion, see Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira, , op. cit.Google Scholar

16. This point was brought to my attention by S. K. Mirani.

17. Schelling, T. C., Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: Norton, 1978, p. 220.Google Scholar

18. See also my Introduction to Rational Choice, edited by Elster, J.. Oxford: Basil Black-well, forthcoming.Google Scholar

19. For this general theme, see Davidson, D., Essays on Actions and Events. London: Oxford University Press, 1980.Google Scholar

20. See my Sour Grapes, Cambridge: University Press, 1983Google Scholar, Chap.II, for the general category of states that are essentially by-products.

21. See my “Rationality, Morality and Collective Action.”

22. Quattrone, G. and Tversky, A., “Self-deception and the Voter's Illusion,” The Multiple Self, forthcoming.Google Scholar

23. For an analysis of a similar line of reasoning, see Nozick, R., “Newcomb's Problem and Two Principles of Choice.” In Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, edited by Rescher, N.. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969.Google Scholar

24. Hamilton, W., “The Genetic Theory of Social Behavior.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 7 (1964) 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. See Becker, G., The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976, p. 270Google Scholar, n.30. A similar refinement may be carried out for the intrapersonal externalities discussed in Section II.

26. Compare Parfit, D., Reasons and Persons. London: Oxford University Press, 1984Google Scholar, for a discussion of do-gooders and, more generally, the psychological difficulties of fine-tuning.

27. For a good discussion of fairness as a motivation to supply public goods, see Sugden, R., “Reciprocity: The Supply of Public Goods Through Voluntary Contributions.” Economic journal 94 (1984) 772–787.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

28. Tocqueville, A. de, Democracy in America. New York: Anchor Books, 1969, pp. 651–652.Google Scholar

29. Thaler, R., “Towards a Positive Theory of Consumer Behavior.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1 (1980) 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. I owe this suggestion to A.Tversky (personal communication).

31. See Williams, B.A.O., “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” In Utilitarianism: For and Against, edited by Smart, J.J.C. and Williams, B.A.O.. Cambridge: University Press, 1973Google Scholar, and Parfit, , op.cit., Chap. 4.Google Scholar

32. For this game see Luce, R. D. and Raiffa, H., Games and Decisions. New York: Wiley, 1957, pp. 90ff., 115ffGoogle Scholar. The game derives its name from an anecdote about a husband and a wife who have to coordinate their choices about how to spend the evening. The husband would rather go to a boxing match, the wife prefers the ballet, but each would rather be with the other than ending up alone.

33. See Bowman, J., Economic Competition and Collective Action: The Politics of Market Organization in the Bituminous Coal Industry, 1880–1940. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, 1984.Google Scholar

34. For this game see Taylor, M. and Ward, H., “Chickens, Whales and Lumpy Goods: Alternative Models of Public Goods Provision.” Political Studies 30 (1982) 350–370CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It derives its name from a ritual of American juvenile culture in which two cars are on a course of head-on collision and the first to “chicken out” has lost.

35. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963, Chap. 2Google Scholar. The difficulty of finding focal points has been emphasized by Raiffa, H., The Art and Science of Negotiations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 54Google Scholar: “One person's symmetry is frequently another's asymmetry, and the discussion of what is symmetrical can be divisive.”

36. Davidson, , op.cit.Google Scholar, Chap.2. An alternative account is proposed by Pears, , op.cit.Google Scholar

37. Russell, R., Bird Lives: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Parker. New York: Charterhouse, 1973.Google Scholar

38. Much of the argument in Sections VI–VIII draws on work by Ainslie, G., notably “Specious Reward.” Psychological Bulletin 82 (1975) 463–496CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, and “A Behavioral Economic Approach to the Defence Mechanisms: Freud's Energy Theory Revisited.” Social Science Information 21 (1982) 735–780.Google Scholar

39. For an instructive discussion of phobia see Beck, A., Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders. New York: International Universities Press, 1976, Chap.7.Google Scholar

40. I owe this observation to A. Schotter.

41. The problem inherent in this assumption is brought out if we ask who is to carry out the comparison. My neglect of this difficulty is perhaps the main gap in the present argument. I hope to be able to confront it on another occasion.

42. Solomon, and Corbit, , op.cit.Google Scholar

43. The pattern may not be feasible if the initial benefits from the noxious activity or the rapidity of damage depends on chronological age.

44. See the articles by Schelling cited in note 4 as well as my Ulysses and the Sirens, Chap.II, for discussion of various extrapsychic devices for self-control.

45. For a discussion of framing see Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D., “The Framing of Decisions and the Rationality of Choice.” Science 211 (1981) 453–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46. Froelich, N. and Oppenheimer, J., “I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends,” World Politics 23 (1970) 104–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Gorman, W., “Tastes, Habits and Choices.” International Economic Review 8 (1967) 218–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Føllesdal, D., “Sartre on Freedom.” In The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, edited by Schilpp, P.. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1982.Google Scholar

49. Two recent neo-Buddhist theories are Kolm, S.-C., Le Liberté-Bonheur. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982Google Scholar, and Parfit, , op.cit.Google Scholar

50. See Ulysses and the Sirens, Chap.II. Compare also the following paradox of precom-mitment: “Can a democratic government credibly commit itself to adhere to a policy no matter what its consequences-to guarantee that the monetary base will not be allowed to grow faster than x%, even if the optimists should turn out to be wrong, and the policy leads to massive unemployment and idle capacity quickly, and slows down inflation only gradually? Catch 22: maybe the theory is right, but the only way to test it is to convince people that the government would persist even if it is wrong.” Bator, F., “The Sins of Wages.” The Economist 21 (1981) 24.Google Scholar

51. Ainslie, G., “A Behavioral Economic Approach to the Defense Mechanisms.”Google Scholar

52. On loose bunching see Ainslie, ibid, and Schelling, T. C., “Imposing Enforceable Rules on Oneself.” Unpublished.Google Scholar

53. On the issue of autonomy versus welfare, see my Sour Grapes, Chap.III.

54. Ainslie, G., “A Behavioral Economic Approach to the Defense Mechanisms,” drawing on Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict.Google Scholar

55. I am grateful to R. Hardin for bringing this possibility to my attention.

56. For the theory of iterated Prisoner's Dilemmas, see Taylor, M., Anarchy and Cooperation. Chichester: Wiley, 1976Google Scholar; Axelrod, R., The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1984.Google Scholar

57. The conditions given in Taylor, , Anarchy and Cooperation, for conditional cooperation in n−person Prisoner's Dilemmas are such as to make it unlikely to come about except by accident.Google Scholar

58. There is no incentive to cooperate in a game known to be the last, since there will be no future games in which retaliation or reciprocation could be forthcoming. This also implies that there is no incentive to cooperate in the penultimate game, since the behavior in the last game is already given, and so on back to the first game.