Time Discounting and Time Consistency

Nicola Dimitri ()

Department of Economics University of Siena from Department of Economics, University of Siena

Abstract: In the economic literature the most widely used type of additive time discounting is Exponential Discounting. Recent work however casts doubts on its ability in explaining how individuals effectively choose. In particular a more general form of discounting that gained importance, in both applied and theoretical work, is Hyperbolic Discounting which captures well phenomena such as procrastination and addiction. An important issue related to the additive form assumed for discounting is that time consistent preferences are the case only with Exponential Discounting. This paper shows that forms of Hyperbolic Discounting, in particular close to the so called Quasi-Hyperbolic model, could also be characterized in terms of dynamically consistent choices when individuals discount the welfare of future selves as well as their payoffs.

JEL-codes: D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:usi:wpaper:456

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