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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.
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]
In real world situations, "discounting makes sense because of the inherent uncertainty of future payoffs". [55] One study looked at how reward discounting is context specific. [18] By differing the time and space between small and large rewards, they were able to test how these factors affected the decision making in tamarins and marmosets ...
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 ...
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
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]
Game theory uses rational choice theory to predict people's decisions in conditions of uncertainty. It understands strategic behavior to be influenced by utility-maximising preferences, as well as player's assumed knowledge of their opponents and material constraints. [7] It also allows for players to predict their opponents' strategies.
Hyperbolic discounting, where discounting is the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs. Hyperbolic discounting leads to choices that are inconsistent over time—people make choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using the same reasoning. [52]