Modèles de décision intertemporels et temps subjectivement perçu

Abstract

In most disciplines, the nature of time has been the cause of harsh debates between the partisans of objective linear time and those in favor of subjective time. In a surprising way, the nature of time has not much stimulated the interest of economists. This can be explained by the invariable use of a tacit assumption that we call “linear time”. According to us, “linear time” brings about a set of misunderstandings in the field of decision theory. First, “linear time” impedes the development of solid behavioral foundations for time discounting. Second, “linear time” leads to the common agreement that only exponential decision makers are time consistent. In this paper, we aim at removing such a misunderstanding by introducing subjective time. In particular, we substitute “linear time” by a more general assumption called “time distance”.

Keywords

• time discounting
• impatience
• time consistency
• linear time
• subjective time