Measurement of Individual Time Preferences Using A Laboratory Approach

The precise measurement of individual time preferences in assessing the economic plans that individuals are involved in, in the estimation of social time preferences, in the assessment of environmental and health plans is very crucial. The purpose of this research is to estimate and also describe the method of estimating individual intertemporal preferences. The sample is 70 students of Allameh Tabataba'i (A.S) and Payam Noor Universities. For this purpose, the experimental method, which allows controlling the confounding variables, is used. In order to estimate the discount function among various functions, the hyperbolic function had a better fit on the data. In this type of function, the discount does not take place at a fixed rate, but with the extension of the selection period, the discount decreases. The fitting of data using the hyperbolic function showed that this kind of discounting is consistent with past research. The average individual discount rate obtained was 0.0615 with a standard deviation of 0.796.