Another Experimental Look at Individual Time Preference

The axiomatic models of intertemporal choice assume that an individual's rate of time discount is constant. Yet a great deal of anecdotal and hypothetical evidence suggests that the discount rate is instead hyperbolic. Likewise, animal studies have also supported the hyperbolic discount rate. Very little empirical evidence exists using human subjects making salient choices. Using experimental economic methodology, support is found for the stationarity component of the discount rate assumption but not for the linearity component.