My small, almost three-year-old daughter, Ariane loves gummy bears. Whenever we are, my wife Hedda , Ariane and I visit the Angel Café Ringstedt in the municipality Bad Bederkesa , she gets the little Ariane by the owner, the great Ariane , a bag of them gift.
The Angel Café Ringstedt , the jelly babies and the small Ariane
If Hedda or I suggest our daughter, but the jelly set aside for later, so we come so with little enthusiasm. Our daughter wants the jelly babies immediately and not later. In other words, it has a high time preference. The benefit of gummy bears the present is worth more to them than their enjoyment in the future. Last Tuesday, the day after Christmas, when we again visited the Angel Café, but everything was different. First was, as usual, the little Ariane of the large Ariane , the gummy bears, but this time two bags, gift. After our daughter had eaten the jelly babies up to three, she said she wanted to break this for the next day. What had happened? We had little time Ariane eaten very many jelly babies. With each gummy bears, which came in her stomach, she took for the value of the next Jelly baby again from. Their subjective value (marginal utility) went to zero. After all, for our Ariane the limit of the gummy bears have become so low that it fell below the value of the gummy bears in the future. The time preference of the small Ariane was now only low. It was, in their view, therefore only reasonable to postpone the enjoyment gummy bears further until the next day.
If Hedda or I suggest our daughter, but the jelly set aside for later, so we come so with little enthusiasm. Our daughter wants the jelly babies immediately and not later. In other words, it has a high time preference. The benefit of gummy bears the present is worth more to them than their enjoyment in the future. Last Tuesday, the day after Christmas, when we again visited the Angel Café, but everything was different. First was, as usual, the little Ariane of the large Ariane , the gummy bears, but this time two bags, gift. After our daughter had eaten the jelly babies up to three, she said she wanted to break this for the next day. What had happened? We had little time Ariane eaten very many jelly babies. With each gummy bears, which came in her stomach, she took for the value of the next Jelly baby again from. Their subjective value (marginal utility) went to zero. After all, for our Ariane the limit of the gummy bears have become so low that it fell below the value of the gummy bears in the future. The time preference of the small Ariane was now only low. It was, in their view, therefore only reasonable to postpone the enjoyment gummy bears further until the next day.
May be you know this little story before too simple and not particularly interesting? Why, then, the elaborate presentation with time preference and threshold? The answer is: The story illustrates some of the fundamental ideas substantiated by the Carl Menger at the end of the nineteenth century Austrian school of economics.
Carl Menger (1840-1921)
It represents a subjective theory of value, that is, the value of a product based on the personal value estimates consumers and producers, and not on any objectively measurable work values. The value of goods to the consumer decreases, the more he has them available (limit or decreasing marginal utility ). He is then only willing to pay a correspondingly lower price. The time preference is the justification for the authorization of a percentage rate that is paid as compensation for the deferred personal use of the money lent. High time preferences mean including high interest rates and vice versa.
the way, at the end of the small Ariane has eaten up all the jelly babies still. The economic reason prevails not always. But she is already visible in the reflections of a small child, yet alone striking, right?
Jens Christian Heuer
sources and links:
Austrian School
Angel Café Ringstedt