timtyler comments on Time and Effort Discounting - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Yvain 07 July 2011 11:48PM

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Comment author: timtyler 08 July 2011 08:14:25AM 7 points [-]

I think exponential discounting already assumes uncertainty. You need uncertainty to discount at all - if things are going to stay the same, might as well wait until later.

What the best-known paper on this says is:

If the risk manifests itself at a known, constant hazard rate, a risk–neutral recipient should discount the reward according to an exponential time–preference function.

It goes on to say:

The observed hyperbolic time–preference function is consistent with an exponential prior distribution for the underlying hazard rate.