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Time consistency and time invariance in collective intertemporal choice

Author

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  • Millner, Antony
  • Heal, Geoffrey
Abstract
Recent work on collective intertemporal choice suggests that non-dictatorial social preferences are generically time inconsistent. We argue that this claim conflates time consistency with two distinct properties of preferences: stationarity and time invariance. While time invariance and stationarity together imply time consistency, the converse does not hold. Although non-dictatorial social preferences cannot be stationary, they may be time consistent if time invariance is abandoned. If individuals are discounted utilitarians, revealed preference provides no guidance on whether social preferences should be time consistent or time invariant. Nevertheless, we argue that time invariant social preferences are often normatively and descriptively problematic.

Suggested Citation

  • Millner, Antony & Heal, Geoffrey, 2018. "Time consistency and time invariance in collective intertemporal choice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87429, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:87429
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Geir B. Asheim & Kuntal Banerjee & Tapan Mitra, 2021. "How stationarity contradicts intergenerational equity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(2), pages 423-444, September.
    2. Daniel J Benjamin & Jakina Debnam Guzman & Marc Fleurbaey & Ori Heffetz & Miles Kimball, 2023. "What do Happiness Data Mean? Theory and Survey Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(6), pages 2377-2412.
    3. Tangren Feng & Shaowei Ke, 2018. "Social Discounting and Intergenerational Pareto," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1537-1567, September.
    4. Feng, Tangren & Ke, Shaowei & McMillan, Andrew, 2022. "Utilitarianism and social discounting with countably many generations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Arnaud Goussebaïle, 2024. "Democratic Climate Policies with Overlapping Generations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(5), pages 1249-1273, May.
    6. Malik Curuk & Suphi Sen, 2023. "Climate Policy and Resource Extraction with Variable Markups and Imperfect Substitutes," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 1091-1120.
    7. Mikhail Pakhnin, 2021. "Collective Choice with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 9141, CESifo.
    8. Jean-Pierre Drugeon & Bertrand Wigniolle, 2021. "On Markovian collective choice with heterogeneous quasi-hyperbolic discounting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1257-1296, November.
    9. Millner, Antony & Heal, Geoffrey, 2018. "Discounting by committee," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 91-104.
    10. Xiangyu Qu & Bach Dong Xuan, 2024. "Unilateral Dominance and Social Discounting," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04487520, HAL.
    11. Takashi Hayashi & Michele Lombardi, 2021. "Social discount rate: spaces for agreement," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 247-257, October.
    12. Millner, Antony & Healey, Andrew, 2018. "Discounting by committee," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90246, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Lemoine, Derek, 2018. "Age-induced acceleration of time: Implications for intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 143-152.
    14. Anchugina, Nina & Ryan, Matthew & Slinko, Arkadii, 2019. "Mixing discount functions: Implications for collective time preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-14.
    15. Miyagishima, Kaname, 2023. "Time-consistent fair social choice," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(3), July.
    16. Craig S. Webb, 2024. "Dynamic preference foundations of expected exponentially-discounted utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(4), pages 921-940, June.
    17. Arnaud Goussebaïle, 2022. "Democratic Climate Policies with Overlapping Generations," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 22/374, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    18. Shuoqing Deng & Xiang Yu & Jiacheng Zhang, 2023. "On time-consistent equilibrium stopping under aggregation of diverse discount rates," Papers 2302.07470, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    19. Ebert, Sebastian & Wei, Wei & Zhou, Xun Yu, 2020. "Weighted discounting—On group diversity, time-inconsistency, and consequences for investment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    20. Salvador Cruz Rambaud & Isabel González Fernández, 2019. "A measure of inconsistencies in intertemporal choice," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-24, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    collective decisions; intertemporal choice; time consistency;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

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