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  4. August 2023
  5. Decreasing Impatience

American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics

ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)

Decreasing Impatience

  • Christopher P. Chambers
  • Federico Echenique
  • Alan D. Miller
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
vol. 15, no. 3, August 2023
(pp. 527–51)
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Abstract

We characterize decreasing impatience, a common behavioral phenomenon in intertemporal choice. Discount factors that display decreasing impatience are characterized through a convexity axiom for investments at fixed interest rates. Then we show that they are equivalent to a geometric average of generalized quasi-hyperbolic discount rates. Finally, they emerge through parimutuel preference aggregation of exponential discount factors.

Citation

Chambers, Christopher P., Federico Echenique, and Alan D. Miller. 2023. "Decreasing Impatience." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 15 (3): 527–51. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20210361

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D15 Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
  • D61 Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
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