Numerous studies have confirmed the relationship between individual risk and time preference and obesity. Nevertheless, none has studied the effect of these attitudes on chronic (long-term) obesity. This study used Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) data from 16,366 individuals. It tracked their obesity status in 2007 and 2014 by calculating body mass index, the ratio between body weight and square of height. Besides the conventional risk-averse and risk-tolerant behaviour, the IFLS sample includes people who fear uncertainty related to the status quo bias. The ordered logit regression results show that past impatience, risk tolerance, and status quo bias behaviour (in 2007) are associated with transient or chronic obesity, while only current behaviour of status quo bias (in 2014) is associated with obesity. Furthermore, our study confirms that chronic obesity in Indonesia is prevalent among highly educated, high-income, and urban-centric individuals, exacerbated by impatience, risk tolerance, and uncertainty aversion. Thus, providing information on the risk of obesity and food calories, giving the incentive to avoid obesity, and improving the quality of built environments such as public parks, public transportation, and footpath could help prevent the rising obesity prevalence.

The objective of this paper is to measure and compare the subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. By using a questionnaire, we found higher subjective discounting for professional athletes than for non-athletes. We also found that the professional athletes’ win-orientation positively affected their present preferences. On the other hand, professional athletes’ play- orientation, which reflects their attitude towards the game itself, negatively affected their present preferences. No such effects were found in non-athletes. We argue that the “win-at-all-costs” competitive approach that leads athletes to sacrifice everything in order to win may cause (or reflect) their higher preference for the present.

The current field study compares the time preferences of young adults of similar ages but in two very different environments, one more dangerous and uncertain than the other. Soldiers, college students and a control group of teenagers answered questionnaires about their time preferences. During mandatory service, soldiers live in a violent atmosphere where they face great uncertainty about the near future and high risk of mortality (measured by probability of survival). University students and teenagers live in much calmer environment and are tested for performance only periodically. The soldier-subjects show relatively high subjective discount rates when compared to the other two groups. We suggest that the higher subjective discount rate among soldiers can be the result of high perceived risk in the army as an institution, or higher mortality risk.

In this investigation, we test whether temporal discounting is domain-specific (i.e., compared to other people, can an individual have a relatively high discount rate for one type of reward but a relatively low discount rate for another?), and we examine whether individual differences in the types of rewards one finds tempting explain domain-specificity in discount rates. Adults discounted delayed rewards they found particularly tempting (defined as the visceral attraction to and enjoyment of a reward) more steeply than did adults who did not find the rewards as tempting, contrary to what might be expected from the magnitude effect. Furthermore, we found significant group by domain interactions (e.g., chip lovers who do not like beer have relatively high discount rates for chips and relatively low discount rates for beer, whereas beer lovers who do not like chips showed the opposite pattern). These results suggest that domain-specificity in temptation partially accounts for corresponding domain-specificity in temporal discounting.

Prior studies have found that subjects prefer an improving sequence of incomeover a constant sequence, even if the constant sequence offers a largerpresent-discounted value. However, little is known about how these preferencesvary with the size of the wage payments. In each of four studies, we find apositive relationship between the preference for increasing payments and thesize of the payments. We find no evidence that our measure of the decreasingmarginal utility of money is associated with this relationship. Additionally, wefind weak evidence in support of a theoretical prediction that the differencebetween the preference for increasing wage payments and the preference forincreasing nonwage payments will be largest for intermediate amounts. We do notfind a relationship between the preference for increasing payments and thepreference for improving nonmonetary sequences. Finally, the relationshipbetween the preference for increasing payments and the size of the payments doesnot appear to be sensitive to the precise specification of the increases.

In two studies, time preferences for financial gains and losses at delays of up to 50 years were elicited using three different methods: matching, fixed-sequence choice titration, and a dynamic “staircase” choice method. Matching was found to create fewer demand characteristics and to produce better fits with the hyperbolic model of discounting. The choice-based measures better predicted real-world outcomes such as smoking and payment of credit card debt. No consistent advantages were found for the dynamic staircase method over fixed-sequence titration.

Several areas of welfare economics seek to evaluate states of affairs as a function of interpersonally comparable individual utilities. The aim is to map each state of affairs onto a vector of individual utilities, and then to produce an ordering of these vectors that can be represented by a mathematical function assigning a real number to each. When this approach is used in intertemporal contexts, a central theoretical question concerns the rate of pure time preference, i.e. the evaluative weight to be applied to utility coming at different times. This article criticizes the standard philosophical account of pure time preference, arguing that it ascribes to economists a methodological commitment they need not accept. The article then evaluates three further objections to pure time preference, concluding that it might still be defensible under certain circumstances. I close by articulating a final argument that, if sound, would constitute a decisive objection to pure time preference as it currently figures in much intertemporal welfare economics.

I argue that the use of a social discount rate to assess the consequences of climate policy is unhelpful and misleading. I consider two lines of justification for discounting: (i) ethical arguments for a ‘pure rate of time preference’ and (ii) economic arguments that take time as a proxy for economic growth and the diminishing marginal utility of consumption. In both cases I conclude that, given the long time horizons, distinctive uncertainties, and particular costs and benefits at stake in the climate context, discount rates are at best a poor proxy for the normative considerations they are meant to represent.

Objectives: Discounting of costs in health-related economic evaluation is generally regarded as uncontroversial, but there is disagreement about discounting health benefits. We sought to explore the current recommendations and practice in health economic evaluations with regard to discounting of costs and benefits.

Methods: Recommendations for best practice on discounting for health effects as set out by government agencies, regulatory bodies, learned journals, and leading health economics texts were surveyed. A review of a sample of primary literature on health economic evaluations was undertaken to ascertain the actual current practice on discounting health effects and costs.

Results: All of the official sources recommended a positive discount rate for both health effects and costs, and most recommended a specific rate (range, 1% to 8%). The most frequently specified rates were 3% and 5%.

A total of 147 studies were reviewed; most of these used a discount rate for health of either 0% (n = 50) or 5% (n = 67). Over 90% of studies used the same discount rate for both health and cost. While 28% used a zero rate for both health and cost, in 64% a nonzero rate was used for both. Studies where the health measure was in natural clinical units (direct) were significantly more likely to have a zero discount rate.

Conclusion: The finding that 28% of studies did not discount costs or benefits is surprising and concerning. A lower likelihood of discounting for benefits when they are in natural units may indicate confusion regarding the rationale for discounting health effects.