Fuzzy Clock
Decision-Specific Timing Information
Research question
Which features of event-time validation are required for a specified decision when the economic event and its recorded date do not coincide?
Abstract
How much timing information does a policy decision require? I study an additive recording clock under a common-mean response restriction. Recorded-response moments and clock moments recover latent-response moments recursively. Within the raw-moment hierarchy, observationally equivalent environments can share every lower-order clock moment and differ at the next response moment. For polynomial timing loss, this difference preserves scheduled-date rankings and changes the minimum loss, allowing the preferred provision mode to reverse. Quadratic loss separates the mean displacement used to choose a date from the variance used to value flexibility. I describe which validation inputs support these queries, how response-dependent recording changes the required moments, and how sampling uncertainty enters the cost comparison. Gas-disruption calculations illustrate the distinctions among an estimated response, a maintained clock, and an executable delivery rule.
In one sentence
When an event’s true time and recorded time differ, the decision usually needs only part of the timing-error distribution, not a perfectly corrected timestamp.