Hyperbolic discounting (H) is currently the dominant behavioral model of intertemporal choice, since it better explains how people behave than the normatively correct exponential discounting model (E). This paper promotes an arithmetic discounting model (A) which challenges H. First, A is more...

The paper surveys over twenty models of delay discounting (also known as temporal discounting, time preference, time discounting), that psychologists and economists have put forward to explain the way people actually trade off time and money. Using little more than the basic algebra of powers...