There is an apparent rift between the way banks calculate and the way humans think.On the one hand, exponential discounting has played a centuries-long, lead role in financial analysis. On the other hand, experiments by behavioral economists demonstrate that hyperbolic discounting is better than...

This paper studies the relationship between patience and comparative development through a combination of reduced-form analyses and model estimations. Based on a globally representative dataset on time preference in 76 countries, we document two sets of stylized facts. First, patience is...

Many important intertemporal decisions, such as investments of firms or households, are made by groups rather than individuals. Little is known what happens to such collective decisions when group members have different incentives for waiting, because the economics literature on group decision...

Intertemporal choice has drawn attention in behavioral economics, econophysics, and neuroeconomics. Recent studies in mainstream economics have mainly focused on inconsistency in intertemporal choice (dynamic inconsistency); while impulsivity/impatience in intertemporal choice has been...

In accounting for the phenomenon of present bias, the hyperbolic discounting and quasi-hyperbolic discounting models have distinct predictions beyond today. We provide experimental evidence supporting diminishing rate of discounting beyond present period under careful experimental controls. In...

Neuroeconomic conditions for "rational addiction" (Becker and Murphy, 1988) have been unknown. This paper derived the conditions for "rational addiction" by utilizing a nonlinear time-perception theory of "hyperbolic" discounting, which is mathematically equivalent to the q-exponential...

We compare different designs that have been used to test for an impact of time horizon on discounting, using real incentives and two representative data sets. With the most commonly used type of design we replicate the typical finding of declining (hyperbolic) discounting, but with other designs...