Decision making under time pressure

Abstract

This paper studies individual decision making when deadlines are random. It establishes the relationship between a decision maker’s preference over timed choice problems and her set of feasible information acquisition paths. The decision maker’s preference over random deadlines satisfies the vNM independence axiom if her optimal way to acquire information depends only on the menu. Moreover, the decision maker’s distaste for contingent planning, a time-consuming activity, becomes weaker as she is allowed more time. Up to normalization, the decision maker’s utility function, prior belief and feasibility set of information paths can be identified from her preference over timed choice problems.