Consider an infinite-horizon decision problem consisting of a sequence of beats. Each beat is divided into two eighth notes and you have to decide when to play them. If you have standard exponential discounting you will evenly space your beats through time. You will play a classical rhythm. But if you are what behavioral economists call a hyperbolic discounter and you have present bias, you will procrastinate the first eighth note. But then in order to complete the beat you will need to play the second eighth note in quick succession. This pattern will repeat through time. You will play a swing rhythm.
Top Posts
- How To Open A Bag of Charcoal
- Coke For A Nickel
- Organs for Money
- Is It Just Your Imagination or Do All Radio Stations Play Ads at the Same Time?
- Why Are Asian Desserts So Bad?
- Pricing Bareback
- Why Is It A Crime To Park Facing The Wrong Way?
- Behavioral Economics Reading List
- What is Boris Johnson's Strategy?
- What is the Recommended Serving Temperature for Guinness?
Tags
art art of office politics banana seeds blog books boston california chicago coffee computers crime current events decision-making economics education evolution family financial crisis food and wine friends funny game theory incentives iPhone kludge language law marriage maths movies music obama politics psychology publishing sandeep has bad taste sanitation sport statistics suicide teaching terrorism the web tomatoes travel TV vapor mill war winter writingSubscribe via RSS
Jeff’s Twitter Feed
- Chekhov blows. 12 hours ago
- ewoks -> wokes so there. 6 days ago
- RT @Mylovanov: We Ukrainians have proven to the world that we are a coherent nation, distinct from Russia, we will ferociously fight for ou… 6 days ago
- RT @Mylovanov: Thank you! It is great to see a paper I coauthored with my friends Andriy and Anton come out in the middle of the war in my… 1 week ago
- word twitter.com/Jeffely/status… 3 weeks ago
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
October 3, 2011 at 7:56 am
Theorizing procrastination « Definitely Maybe
[…] discounting makes a case of procrastination. To hear more: Learning Jazz helps to learn behavioral science. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. By mumamme, on October 3, […]