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In behavioral economics, time preference (or time discounting, [1] delay discounting, temporal discounting, [2] long-term orientation [3]) is the current relative valuation placed on receiving a good at an earlier date compared with receiving it at a later date. [1] Applications for these preferences include finance, health, climate change.
Time discounting or temporal discounting is a wide range of ideas involving the connection between time and the extent to which an object, situation, or course of action is seen as valuable. The overall theory is that people put more value and worth into immediate events and outcomes, and apply less value to future outcomes or events.
The phenomenon of hyperbolic discounting is implicit in Richard Herrnstein's "matching law", which states that when dividing their time or effort between two non-exclusive, ongoing sources of reward, most subjects allocate in direct proportion to the rate and size of rewards from the two sources, and in inverse proportion to their delays. [8]
It is calculated as the present discounted value of future utility, and for people with time preference for sooner rather than later gratification, it is less than the future utility. The utility of an event x occurring at future time t under utility function u, discounted back to the present (time 0) using discount factor β, is
In economics, a discount function is used in economic models to describe the weights placed on rewards received at different points in time. For example, if time is discrete and utility is time-separable, with the discount function f(t) having a negative first derivative and with c t (or c(t) in continuous time) defined as consumption at time t, total utility from an infinite stream of ...
When considering longer time periods, a fixed "pure time preference" discount rate becomes extremely counterintuitive; a 1% rate implies that Tutankhamun should ethically value a single day of his life over the sum total entire lives of everyone living today. Over long periods, peoples' stated preferences become extremely hyperbolic. [4]
Time discounting, which is separate from the age-weighting function, describes preferences in time as used in economic models. [17] The effects of the interplay between life expectancy and years lost, discounting, and social weighting are complex, depending on the severity and duration of illness.
Exponential discounting yields time-consistent preferences. Exponential discounting and, more generally, time-consistent preferences are often assumed in rational choice theory, since they imply that all of a decision-maker's selves will agree with the choices made by each self. Any decision that the individual makes for himself in advance will ...