IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iuk/wpaper/2008-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Some Common Confusions about Hyperbolic Discounting

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Rasmusen

    (Department of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University Kelley School of Business)

Abstract

There is much confusion over what "hyperbolic discounting" means. I argue that what matters is the use of relativistic instead of objective time, not the shape of the discount function.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Rasmusen, 2008. "Some Common Confusions about Hyperbolic Discounting," Working Papers 2008-11, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2008-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/RePEc/iuk/wpaper/bepp2008-11-rasmusen.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Harvey, 1986. "Value Functions for Infinite-Period Planning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(9), pages 1123-1139, September.
    2. B. Douglas Bernheim & Antonio Rangel, 2009. "Beyond Revealed Preference: Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 51-104.
    3. E. S. Phelps & R. A. Pollak, 1968. "On Second-Best National Saving and Game-Equilibrium Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 35(2), pages 185-199.
    4. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    5. George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, 1992. "Anomalies in Intertemporal Choice: Evidence and an Interpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 573-597.
    6. George-Marios Angeletos, 2001. "The Hyberbolic Consumption Model: Calibration, Simulation, and Empirical Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 47-68, Summer.
    7. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eric Rasmusen, 2012. "Internalities and paternalism: applying the compensation criterion to multiple selves across time," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(4), pages 601-615, April.
    2. Caputo, Michael R., 2013. "The intrinsic comparative dynamics of infinite horizon optimal control problems with a time-varying discount rate and time-distance discounting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 810-820.
    3. Habis, Helga & Perge, Laura, 2018. "Pató Pál úr modellezése. Irracionalitás az intertemporális döntéshozatalban [Pál Pató-style modelling. Irrationality in inter-temporal decision-making]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 619-631.
    4. Gahramanov, Emin, 2013. "Survival misperception, time inconsistency, and implications for life-cycle saving and welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 539-550.
    5. Eric Crampton & Matt Burgess & Brad Taylor, 2011. "The Cost of Cost Studies," Working Papers in Economics 11/29, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Galizzi, Matteo M. & Miraldo, Marisa & Stavropoulou, Charitini & van der Pol, Marjon, 2016. "Doctor–patient differences in risk and time preferences: A field experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 171-182.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    3. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2008. "Procrastination on long-term projects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 161-175, May.
    4. Andrew Meyer, 2013. "Estimating discount factors for public and private goods and testing competing discounting hypotheses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 133-173, April.
    5. Bart Cockx & Corinna Ghirelli & Bruno Van der Linden, 2013. "Monitoring Job Search Effort with Hyperbolic Time Preferences and Non-Compliance: A Welfare Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 4187, CESifo.
    6. Drouhin, Nicolas, 2020. "Non-stationary additive utility and time consistency," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Kang, Jingoo & Kang, Minwook, 2022. "Durable goods as commitment devices under quasi-hyperbolic discounting," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    8. Arthur E. Attema & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier L’Haridon & Patrick Peretti-Watel & Valérie Seror, 2018. "Discounting health and money: New evidence using a more robust method," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(2), pages 117-140, April.
    9. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon, 2013. "Sign-dependence in intertemporal choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 225-253, December.
    10. Balbus, Łukasz & Reffett, Kevin & Woźny, Łukasz, 2022. "Time-consistent equilibria in dynamic models with recursive payoffs and behavioral discounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    11. Gowdy, John & Rosser, J. Barkley & Roy, Loraine, 2013. "The evolution of hyperbolic discounting: Implications for truly social valuation of the future," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 94-104.
    12. Nicolas Drouhin, 2016. "Non stationary additive utility and time consistency," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01238584, HAL.
    13. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2008. "How are preferences revealed?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1787-1794, August.
    14. Kirill Borissov & Mikhail Pakhnin & Ronald Wendner, 2020. "Naive Agents with Quasi-hyperbolic Discounting and Perfect Foresight," EUSP Department of Economics Working Paper Series 2020/03, European University at St. Petersburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Kang, Minwook, 2022. "The positive impact of investment subsidies on the economy with present-biased consumers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 229-235.
    16. Murat Yilmaz, 2018. "An Extended Survey of Time-Inconsistency and Its Applications," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 55-73.
    17. Ebert, Sebastian & Wei, Wei & Zhou, Xun Yu, 2020. "Weighted discounting—On group diversity, time-inconsistency, and consequences for investment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    18. Minwook Kang, 2019. "Pareto-improving tax policies under hyperbolic discounting," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(3), pages 618-660, June.
    19. Shinsuke Ikeda & Myong-Il Kang, 2015. "Hyperbolic Discounting, Borrowing Aversion and Debt Holding," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 421-446, December.
    20. Akin, Zafer & Yavas, Abdullah, 2023. "Elicited Time Preferences and Behavior in Long-Run Projects," MPRA Paper 117133, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    time inconsistency; hyperbolic discounting;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iuk:wpaper:2008-11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rick Harbaugh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dpiubus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.