Reinforcement learning methods typically discount future rewards using an exponential scheme to achieve theoretical convergence guarantees. Studies from neuroscience, psychology, and economics suggest that human animal behavior is better captured by the hyperbolic discounting model. Hyperbolic has recently been studied in deep reinforcement shown promising results. However, this area of researc...

Delay discounting-often referred to as hyperbolic discounting in the financial literature-is defined by a consistent preference for smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards, and by failure of future consequences to curtail current consummatory behaviors. Previous research demonstrates (1) excessive delay discounting among individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ...

The value of a reinforcer decreases as the time until its receipt increases, a phenomenon referred to as delay discounting. Although delay discounting of non-drug reinforcers has been studied extensively in a number of species, our knowledge of discounting in non-human primates is limited. In the present study, rhesus monkeys were allowed to choose in discrete trials between 0.05% saccharin del...

This paper investigates how the assumption of quasi-geometric (hyperbolic) discounting affects the distributional implications of the standard one-sector neoclassical growth model with infinitely lived heterogeneous agents. The agents are subject to idiosyncratic shocks and face borrowing constraints. We confine attention to an interior Markov recursive equilibrium. The consequence of quasi-geo...

This paper addresses the question of whether the findings of behavioral economics imply that techniques used in cost-benefit analysis should be modified. The findings of behavioral economics considered include the status-quo effect, loss-aversion, overconfidence and hyperbolic discounting. These behavioral phenomena do indeed imply that concepts from cost-benefit analysis such as consumer surpl...

How do future well-being and preferences affect the current well-being and preferences of forward-looking agents? Our theory explores this question, producing a new class of tractable models which capture and explain phenomena such as present bias, consumption interdependence, sign effects in discounting, and the desire to space out consumption. Agents manifest impatience toward the current per...

This paper provides a novel axiomatization of quasi-hyperbolic discounting, which imposes consistency restrictions directly on the intertemporal tradeoffs. The experimental design proposed in this paper will be useful for experimental work since it renders the short-run discount factor elicitation independent of the utility function. This makes comparisons of impatience across a spectrum of dif...

Little is known about the acute effects of drugs of abuse on impulsivity and self-control. In this study, impulsivity was assessed in humans using a computer task that measured delay and probability discounting. Discounting describes how much the value of a reward (or punisher) is decreased when its occurrence is either delayed or uncertain. Twenty-four healthy adult volunteers ingested a moder...

Quasi-hyperbolic discounting predicts impatience over short-run tradeoffs. I present a direct non-laboratory test of this implication using data on the nutritional intake of food stamp recipients. Caloric intake declines by 10 to 15 percent over the food stamp month, implying a significant preference for immediate consumption. These findings constitute a rejection of the permanent income hypoth...

Some people have self-control problems regularly. This paper adds endogenous retirement to Laibson’s quasi-hyperbolic discounting savings model [Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 (1997) 443–477]. Earlier selves think that the deciding self tends to retire too early and may save less to induce later retirement. Still earlier selves may think the pre-retirement self does this too much, saving mo...