On the intertemporal allocation of consumption, mortality and life-history strategies

Junji Kageyama
Additional contact information
Junji Kageyama: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

No WP-2009-008, MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany

Abstract: This paper studies the bio-evolutionary origin of time preference. By examining human life-history strategies, it demonstrates that time discounting and mortality reflect the age-variation in the value of survival, which in turn depends on future reproduction and production. Consistent with empirical findings, it also suggests that our biologically endowed time preference is positive, reaches its lowest at around age twenty and increases thereafter, and is higher when exchange transactions involve a reduction in present consumption than when they involve an increase in present consumption.

JEL-codes: J1 Z0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2009-008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2009-008

DOI: 10.4054/MPIDR-WP-2009-008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPIDR Working Papers from Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Wilhelm ().