Time consistency and time invariance in collective intertemporal choice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Miliner, Antony; Heal, Geoffrey
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2018.03.002
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 158-169
• 关键词: Collective decisions; intertemporal choice; time consistency

摘要

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. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.