ABSTRACT
Among the challenges facing decision makers there are none so inescapable and baffling as those presented by time, risk and uncertainty. Over the past fifty years economic discussion of these issues has greatly increased. Two main themes have dominated, the idea of time discounting and the possibilities of confronting risk and uncertainty in a rational manner. On both of these fronts certain clear intellectual formulas have emerged with both descriptive and normative uses. The formulas can help us to understand what decision makers actually do, usually implicitly, about the problems of time, risk and uncertainty. Properly used, the formulas can also help decision makers in organisations to think about time, risk and uncertainty more consistently and clearly. The formulas cannot substitute for creative, imaginative and courageous decisions about the future but they can prepare the ground.
