Some thoughts on money supply for investments and time discounting:
People's tendency to prefer current to future interests should depend
on how long they expect to live and what they will see in the future.
It makes a difference for my discounting of value in time
whether I expect myself in 20 years to have deteriorated
body and mind in the same environment, or improved body and
mind in a dramatically better environment. The expected
stability of the environment also should play some role.
In a more stable environment, when I expect to live longer
and have the same money bring me more and more fun with
time, I would discount my future income less.
Also, probably, young people discount their future income
more than old people (partly because they'll change more
in the next 20 years, and so identify with their future
selves less). With average age of the population moving up,
the discount rate should decrease.
Many of these factors changed considerably very recently, so
I am not sure how relevant the statistics of the last several
centuries may be here.
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Alexander Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
<sasha1@netcom.com> <sasha@lucifer.com> <sasha@media.mit.edu>
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Received on Mon Mar 2 03:38:32 1998
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