This article gives a comprehensive treatment of preferences regarding time risk—the risk of something happening sooner or later—within the expected discounted utility model. We characterize the signs of the discount function’s derivatives of all orders and show how these signs are decisive for time risk preferences. We introduce the notions of prudent and temperate discounting, and illustrate their importance for economic behavior. Several applications in which an important event is “only a matter of time” are presented. The seminal net present value rule to evaluate investment opportunities is generalized to take into account the timing uncertainty of cash flows.

中文翻译：

---

当事情只是时间问题时的决策

本文对预期的折扣实用新型中的时间风险（某件事迟早发生的风险）进行了全面的偏好处理。我们表征了所有订单的折现函数的导数的符号，并显示了这些符号如何决定时间风险偏好。我们介绍了谨慎和温和贴现的概念，并说明了它们对经济行为的重要性。提出了几个重要事件仅是时间问题的应用。考虑到现金流量的时间不确定性，对评估投资机会的开创性净现值法则进行了概括。