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Declining Discount Rates: The Long and the Short of it

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Author Info
Ben Groom ()
Cameron Hepburn
Phoebe Koundouri
David Pearce

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Abstract

The last few years have witnessed important advances in our understanding of time preference and social discounting. In particular, several rationales for the use of time-varying social discount rates have emerged. These rationales range from the ad hoc to the formal, with some founded solely in economic theory while others reflect principles of intergenerational equity. While these advances are to be applauded, the practitioner is left with a confusing array of rationales and the sense that almost any discount rate can be justified. This paper draws together these different strands and provides a critical review of past and present contributions to this literature. In addition to this we highlight some of the problems with employing DDRs in the decision-making process, the most pressing of which may be time inconsistency. We clarify their practical implications, and potential pitfalls, of the more credible rationales and argue that some approaches popular in environmental economics literature are ill-conceived. Finally, we illustrate the impact of different approaches by examining global warming and nuclear power investment. This includes an application and extension of Newell and Pizer [‘Discounting the benefits of climate change mitigation : how much do uncertain rates increase valuations?’ Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 46 (2003) 52] to UK interest rate data. Copyright Springer 2005

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10640-005-4681-y
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Publisher Info
Article provided by European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in its journal Environmental & Resource Economics.

Volume (Year): 32 (2005)
Issue (Month): 4 (December)
Pages: 445-493
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Handle: RePEc:kap:enreec:v:32:y:2005:i:4:p:445-493

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Web page: http://www.springerlink.com/link.asp?id=100263

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Related research
Keywords: global warming; intergenerational equity; social cost benefit analysis; time inconsistency; uncertainty; time varying discount rates;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Hugh Gravelle & Dave Smith, 2001. "Discounting for health effects in cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 587-599. [Downloadable!]
  2. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Collective Investment Decision Making with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 9629, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Tjalling C. Koopmans, 1959. "Stationary Ordinal Utility and Impatience," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 81, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Cropper, Maureen & Laibson, David, 1998. "The implications of hyperbolic discounting for project evaluation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1943, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  5. Cameron Hepburn, 2003. "Hyperbolic Discounting and Resource Collapse," Economics Series Working Papers 159, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Winkler, Ralph, 2009. "Now or Never: Environmental Protection under Hyperbolic Discounting," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 3(12), pages 1-22. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Kögel, Tomas, 2009. "On the Relation between Dual-Rate Discounting and Substitutability," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-10, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  3. R. Turner, 2007. "Limits to CBA in UK and European environmental policy: retrospects and future prospects," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(1), pages 253-269, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Kögel, Tomas, 2009. "On the Relation between Discounting of Climate Change and Edgeworth-Pareto Substitutability," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 3(27), pages 1-12. [Downloadable!]
  5. David Maddison & Eleanor Field & Zubaida Choudhury & Unai Pascual, 2009. "Trading-off health risk and latency: Evidence from water pollution in Bangladesh," Environmental Economy and Policy Research Working Papers 45.2009, University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economics, revised 2009. [Downloadable!]
  6. Tomoki Fujii & Larry Karp, 2006. "Numerical Analysis of Non-Constant Discounting with an Application to Renewable Resource Management," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series 1019, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  7. Alfred Endres & Regina Bertram & Bianca Rundshagen, 2007. "Environmental Liability Law and Induced Technical Change – The Role of Discounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(3), pages 341-366, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Elyès Jouini & Jean-Michel Marin & Clotilde Napp, 2008. "Discounting and Divergence of Opinion," Working Papers halshs-00176636_v2, HAL. [Downloadable!]
  9. Alistair Ulph & David Ulph, 2007. "Climate change—environmental and technology policies in a strategic context," Environmental & Resource Economics, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(1), pages 159-180, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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