This paper presents an analysis of general time preferences in the canonical Rubinstein (1982) model of bargaining, allowing for arbitrarily history-dependent strategies. I derive a simple sufficient structure for optimal punishments and thereby fully characterize (i) the set of equilibrium...

In this paper I propose a time-consistent method of discounting hyperbolically that contains the discount rate implied by Gamma discounting as a special case. I apply the discounting method to three canonical environmental problems: (i) optimal renewable resource use, (ii) the tragedy of the...

A pre-test of Ramsey optimal policy versus time-consistent policy rejects time-consistent policy and (optimal) simple rule for the U.S. Fed during 1960 to 2006, assuming the reference new-Keynesian Phillips curve transmission mechanism with auto-correlated cost-push shock. The number of reduced...

Pension economics has traditionally guided pension policy with the help of formal models based on individuals who think in a life cycle context with perfect foresight, full information, and in a time-consistent manner. This paper sheds light on selected aspects of pension economics when these...

In "How should the distant future be discounted when discount rates are uncertain?" (2010) Gollier and Weitzman claimed having solved the Weitzman-Gollier puzzle, concluding from a risk-averse utility maximizing model that Weitzman discounting is qualitatively correct and that when uncertain...

Standard analyses of economic policy assume exponential discounting, even though empirical and experimental evidence shows that preferences are time-inconsistent and discounting is hyperbolic. When policy makers - or the voters they must satisfy - apply smaller discount rates for long-term than...

Within a continuous time life cycle model of consumption and savings, I study the properties of the most general class of additive intertemporal utility functionals. They are not necessarily stationary, and do not necessarily multiplicatively separate a discount factor from "per-period utility"....