MET Seminar - Craig Webb
| Dates: | 2 April 2025 |
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| Times: | 17:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Current University students |
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Title: Time Tradeoffs for the Foundations and Analysis of Discounted Non-Stationary Utility
Author: Craig Webb
Abstract: Tastes change as time passes. This simple truth can be expressed in a discounted utility framework by allowing utility to be non-stationary. This paper provides an analysis and a complete, theoretical foundation for discounting non-stationary utility in a framework of consumption streams in continuous time. The concept of time tradeoffs is developed. Time tradeoffs reveal, through preferences, how future time intervals are weighted. Using time tradeoffs, relative convexity, comparative decreasing impatience, is characterised. Time tradeoff invariance and consistency axioms are formulated that characterise discounted non-stationary utility and the special case of exponentially discounted non-stationary utility. It is shown that, in this context, stationarity of utility is recovered if and only if preferences are time invariant.
Contact: david.delacretaz@manchester.ac.uk
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Boardroom 2.016
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
