 One important note of caution is in order here. Much of the recent behavioral literature takes for granted that temporally inconsistent discounting is the standard or default case for people. However,  Andersen et al (2008)  show empirically that this arises from (i) assuming that groups of people are homogenous with respect to which functional forms best describe their discounting behavior, and (ii) failure to independently elicit and control for people’s differing levels of risk aversion in estimating their discount functions. In a range of populations that have been studied with these two considerations in mind, data suggest that temporally consistent discounting describes substantially higher proportions of choices than does temporally inconsistent choices. Over-generalization of hyperbolic discounting models should thus be avoided. 