Cross-Period Impatience: Subjective Financial Periods Explain Time-Inconsistent Choices
研究发现，时间不一致偏好仅在选择被大幅延迟（如数月后）时才可靠出现，这无法用现时偏误解释。作者提出跨期贴现框架，认为消费者在选项跨越不同主观财务期时更不耐烦，从而产生不一致的时间偏好。
Abstract Inconsistency in consumer time preferences has been well established and used to explain seemingly short-sighted behaviors (e.g., failures of self-control). However, prior research has conflated time-inconsistent preferences (discount rates that vary over time) with present bias (greater discounting when outcomes are delayed specifically from the present, as opposed to from a future time). This research shows that time-inconsistent preferences are reliably observed only when choices are substantially delayed (e.g., months into the future), which cannot be explained by present bias. This seeming puzzle is explained by a novel cross-period discounting framework, which predicts that consumers are more impatient when choosing between options occurring in different subjective financial periods. As a result, they display inconsistent time preferences and are less willing to wait for an equally delayed outcome specifically when a common delay to both options moves the larger-later option into a subsequent financial period. Six studies and multiple supplementary studies demonstrate that sensitivity to subjective financial periods accounts for time-inconsistent consumer preferences better than current models of time discounting based on present bias.