Hyperbolic Discounting — Why Your Future-Self Disagrees

Behavioral-economics lab in three rounds. Participants elicit their own present-bias parameter beta from a paired binary-choice elicitation, watch a naif, sophisticate, and pre-committer diverge on the same maintenance problem, and design a SMarT-style auto-enrollment plus auto-escalation pension architecture for Helio Verde Beverages (1,600 employees, Costaria). Bridges Phelps-Pollak/Laibson quasi-hyperbolic discounting to Madrian-Shea and Thaler-Benartzi mechanism design.