William Barnett Ii, Walter E. Block
The Rate of Time Preference: a Praxeological Oxymoron
Summary:
In ordinal utility analysis, one can but prefer or set aside. A person can choose option A or option B. Chalk or cheese, guns or butter. There cannot be any such thing as a rate at which a man engages in such activities. Cardinality cannot enter into the picture. No one prefers a given amount of chalk twice as much as cheese. This basic praxeological insight should not be lost sight of when we enter the more complex realm of time preference and interest rate determination. And yet, it commonly is. For we all speak of a “time preference rate.” This is an oxymoron and a praxeological monstrosity. The present paper is devoted to promoting clear thinking by attempting to purify economic language, so as to jettison the concept of a “time preference rate.”
