Predicting food waste from dynamic inconsistency

Kurzfassung/Abstract

Household food waste imposes substantial economic and environmental costs, yet its behavioral determinants remain imperfectly understood. Because food consumption unfolds over multiple stages, it creates scope for dynamically inconsistent choices that may turn good intentions into waste. We investigate this relationship using a nationally representative survey from Germany that combines targeted measures of food purchasing, consumption, and waste with individual present-bias parameters elicited from monetary intertemporal trade-off questions. More present-biased individuals waste significantly more food: a 10% increase in dynamic inconsistency is associated with roughly 2% more waste. This relationship is robust across specifications, replicated using a self-reported procrastination proxy, and stable several weeks later in a second survey wave. We also identify and empirically validate the mechanism linking present bias to food waste: dynamically inconsistent individuals are more likely to deviate from their own consumption intentions, and these deviations are strongly predictive of food waste. Our findings identify present bias as a systematic and previously overlooked driver of avoidable household food waste, suggesting that food policies need to address behavior along the full consumption chain.