An essay on discounting theory: subjective expected utility and sensitivity to variation.

Summary The thesis, entitled "Essay on Discounting Theory: Subjective Expected Utility and Sensitivity to Variation", falls within the research perimeter associated with the theory of intertemporal decision making, and takes two paths that have been relatively unexplored until now. On the one hand, it questions the observed - and modelled - diversity of discounting mechanisms by seeking to explain such diversity on the basis of a single behavioural structure (Part I. An investigation of discounting). On the other hand, in the face of this increasing diversity of discounting mechanisms, the thesis questions the condition of temporal coherence by seeking to characterize coherent temporal preferences on the basis of the same behavioral structure defined in the first part (Part II. An investigation of temporal coherence).