Article ID: | iaor201111958 |
Volume: | 44 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 695 |
End Page Number: | 708 |
Publication Date: | May 2011 |
Journal: | Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'conomique |
Authors: | Xia Bianjun |
Keywords: | risk |
Individual time discounting behaviour experimentally exhibits important anomalies that are inconsistent with the standard discounted utility model. These include the time preference reversal characteristic of hyperbolic discounting, the magnitude effect and the extreme sign effect. I propose a simple explanation of discounting that accounts for these three anomalies simultaneously, within the context of the expected utility model with uncertainty, risk aversion, and preference for precautionary saving.