This study proposes a model of non-unitary time discounting and examines its welfare implications. A key feature of our model lies in the disparity of time discounting between multiple distinct goods, which induces an individual’s preference reversals even though she normally discounts her future utilities for each good. After characterizing the time-consistent decision-making by such an individual, we compare welfare achieved in the market economy and welfare in the planner’s allocation from the perspective of all selves across time. Under certain situations, the selves in early periods strictly prefer the social planner’s allocation, whereas the selves in future periods strictly prefer the market equilibrium. Therefore, the welfare implications of our model are quite different from those in the canonical discounting model and in models of other time-inconsistent preferences.

这项研究提出了一种非单位时间贴现的模型，并研究了其对福利的影响。我们模型的一个关键特征在于多种不同商品之间的时间折扣差异，即使个人通常会为每种商品折扣未来的效用，也会导致个人偏好的逆转。在描述了这样一个人在时间上一致的决策的特征之后，我们从时间上所有自我的角度比较了市场经济中获得的福利和计划者分配中的福利。在某些情况下，早期的自我严格地倾向于社会计划者的配置，而未来的自我严格地倾向于市场均衡。因此，