We demonstrate that people discount delayed task outcomes due to perceived changes over time in supplies of slack. Slack is the perceived surplus of a given resource available to complete a focal task. For temporally near events, investing a resource for one purpose may cause one to fail to...

This paper shows evidence for expense neglect in how consumers forecast their future spare money or “financial slack.” Even though people generally think that both their income and expenses will rise in the future, we find that they systematically under-weigh the extent to which their...