Buxton Index

The Buxton Index is a prospective measure of individual or institutional persistence, defined as the time horizon, in years, over which an entity makes its plans. The index was originally invented by John Buxton while a professor at Warwick University, and has been popularized primarily through the essays of computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra.
In Dijkstra's examples, managers who have to yield quarterly reports have a Buxton Index of 1/4, Academia about 50 (remaining lifetime of graduates), while "true christians" have a Buxton Index of infinity.
The concept of such a planning time horizon is related to the discount rate and time value of money found in finance and economics, but is more general, also pertaining to social institutions such as organized religions, governments, and universities. It is fundamental to the spontaneous appearance of cooperation in situations like the iterated prisoner's dilemma, in which what constitutes rational behavior changes dramatically depending on the time horizon of the players.

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