Measuring Impatience in Intertemporal Choice

Abstract

In general terms, decreasing impatience means decreasing discount rates. This property has been usually referred to as hyperbolic discounting, although there are other discount functions which also exhibit decreasing discount rates. This paper focuses on the measurement of the impatience associated with a discount function with the aim of establishing a methodology to compare this characteristic for two different discount functions. In this way, first we define the patience associated with a discount function in an interval as its corresponding discount factor and consequently we deduce that the impatience at a given moment is the corresponding instantaneous discount rate. Second we compare the degree of impatience of discount functions belonging to the same or different families, by considering the cases in which the functions do or do not intersect.

El efecto peanuts en la toma de decisiones intertemporales.

“…por lo que no se produce la reversión de las preferencias (Cruz et al, 2016). En el modelo de descuento exponencial el valor de la recompensa disminuye en la misma proporción por cada período de tiempo que ésta es retrasada.…”

“…Es decir, trata de analizar la preferencia o la indiferencia entre dos recompensas (x 1 ,t 1 ) y (x 2 ,t 2 ), donde x 1 <x 2 y t 1 <t 2 (Cruz et al, 2016).…”

“…Es decir, trata de analizar la preferencia o la indiferencia entre dos recompensas (x 1 ,t 1 ) y (x 2 ,t 2 ), donde x 1 <x 2 y t 1 <t 2 (Cruz et al, 2016).El modelo tradicionalmente utilizado para describir el comportamiento individual es el modelo de utilidad descontada (Samuelson, 1937). Se trata de un modelo descuento exponencial que supone que las decisiones tomadas por los agentes son racionales y consistentes.…”

Delay Effect and Subadditivity. Proposal of a New Discount Function: The Asymmetric Exponential Discounting

“…Consequently, we can say that, in the context of the delay effect, the decision-maker becomes more impatient when the reward is near the current moment. In this way, impulsivity and impatience are taken as analogous concepts by some researchers, such as Takahashi et al [23] and specifically by Cruz Rambaud and Muñoz Torrecillas [24].On the other hand, impatience gives rise to another concept, the so-called excessive discount [25], which occurs when the applied discount rates are excessively high. This phenomenon can be mainly associated with people with problems such as schizophrenia, obese people, drug addicts, and smokers, among others.…”

“…Consequently, we can say that, in the context of the delay effect, the decision-maker becomes more impatient when the reward is near the current moment. In this way, impulsivity and impatience are taken as analogous concepts by some researchers, such as Takahashi et al [23] and specifically by Cruz Rambaud and Muñoz Torrecillas [24].…”