Time preference over other people’s money

Research about time preference is often done in decision-making for yourself. Time discounting is traditionally modelled in form of exponential discounting, in which the discount rate over time is constant. While more recently research have shown that discount rates decline over time and follows the pattern of hyperbolic discounting. Would people make the same decisions about money in relation to their own preferences, when they have to make the decision for relatives and for strangers? This paper examines time stationarity in decision-making for yourself, for relatives and for strangers. This paper will also examine if the magnitude effect, sign effect and sequence effect hold in decision-making for yourself, for relatives and for strangers. The findings of this research are that there is some evidence for time stationarity in decision-making for yourself, relatives and strangers. Also the sign effect holds in decision-making for yourself, relatives and strangers. The magnitude effect only holds in case of decision-making for yourself, while the sequence effect does not hold in decision-making for yourself, relatives and strangers.