IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-00394035.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aggregation of Discount Rates: an Equilibrium Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Elyès Jouini

    (CEREMADE - CEntre de REcherches en MAthématiques de la DEcision - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Clotilde Napp

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

We address the problem of a social planner who, as in Weitzman (2001), gathers data on experts' discount rates and wants to infer the socially efficient consumption discount rate. We propose an 'equilibrium approach' and we analyse the expression and the properties of the resulting 'equilibrium discount rate'. We compare our expression for the discount rate with the different expressions that have been previously proposed in the literature. We analyse the impact of shifts in the distributions of experts discount rates. Finally, we apply our approach to Weitzman (2001)'s data to propose discount rates for public sector Cost-Benefit Analysis, in particular for the long term.

Suggested Citation

  • Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2008. "Aggregation of Discount Rates: an Equilibrium Approach," Working Papers halshs-00394035, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00394035
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00394035v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00394035v2/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diego Nocetti & Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2008. "Properties of the Social Discount Rate in a Benthamite Framework with Heterogeneous Degrees of Impatience," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(10), pages 1822-1826, October.
    2. Gollier, Christian, 2004. "Maximizing the expected net future value as an alternative strategy to gamma discounting," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 85-89, June.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/260 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Landsberger, Michael & Meilijson, Isaac, 1990. "Demand for risky financial assets: A portfolio analysis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 204-213, February.
    5. Martin L. Weitzman, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 703-724, September.
    6. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801.
    7. Martin L. Weitzman, 2001. "Gamma Discounting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 260-271, March.
    8. Mark Rubinstein., 1975. "The Strong Case for the Generalized Logarithmic Utility Model as the Premier Model of Financial Markets," Research Program in Finance Working Papers 34, University of California at Berkeley.
    9. Yvan Lengwiler, 2005. "Heterogeneous Patience and the Term Structure of Real Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 890-896, June.
    10. Weitzman, Martin L., 1998. "Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 201-208, November.
    11. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    12. Jouini, Elyès & Marin, Jean-Michel & Napp, Clotilde, 2010. "Discounting and divergence of opinion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 830-859, March.
    13. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 686-702, September.
    14. Kenneth F. Reinschmidt, 2002. "Aggregate Social Discount Rate Derived from Individual Discount Rates," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(2), pages 307-312, February.
    15. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2005. "Aggregation of Heterogeneous Time Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 878-896, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jouini, Elyès & Napp, Clotilde, 2014. "How to aggregate experts' discount rates: An equilibrium approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 235-243.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4987 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Jouini, Elyès & Marin, Jean-Michel & Napp, Clotilde, 2010. "Discounting and divergence of opinion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 830-859, March.
    4. Geoffrey Heal & Antony Millner, 2013. "Discounting under disagreement," GRI Working Papers 112, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    5. Ram Fishman, 2019. "Heterogeneous Patience, Bargaining Power and Investment in Future Public Goods," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 73(4), pages 1101-1107, August.
    6. Antony Millner & Geoffrey Heal, 2015. "Collective intertemporal choice: time consistency vs. time invariance," GRI Working Papers 220, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    7. Dorje C. Brody & Lane P. Hughston, 2013. "Social Discounting and the Long Rate of Interest," Papers 1306.5145, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2015.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/2319 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2012. "Behavioral biases and the representative agent," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 97-123, July.
    10. Echazu Luciana & Nocetti Diego & Smith William T., 2012. "A New Look into the Determinants of the Ecological Discount Rate: Disentangling Social Preferences," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-44, April.
    11. Dorje C. Brody & Lane P. Hughston, 2018. "Social Discounting And The Long Rate Of Interest," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 306-334, January.
    12. Freeman, Mark C. & Groom, Ben, 2016. "How certain are we about the certainty-equivalent long term social discount rate?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 152-168.
    13. Kollenberg, Sascha & Taschini, Luca, 2016. "Emissions trading systems with cap adjustments," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 20-36.
    14. Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2009. "Cognitive biases and the representative agent," Working Papers halshs-00488570, HAL.
    15. Hepburn, Cameron & Koundouri, Phoebe & Panopoulou, Ekaterini & Pantelidis, Theologos, 2009. "Social discounting under uncertainty: A cross-country comparison," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 140-150, March.
    16. Antony Millner, 2016. "Heterogeneous intergenerational altruism," GRI Working Papers 226, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    17. Mikhail Pakhnin, 2021. "Collective Choice with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 9141, CESifo.
    18. Moritz Drupp & Mark Freeman & Ben Groom & Frikk Nesje, 2015. "Discounting disentangled: an expert survey on the determinants of the long-term social discount rate," GRI Working Papers 196a, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    19. Freeman, Mark C., 2009. "Yes, we should discount the far-distant future at its lowest possible rate: a resolution of the Weitzman-Gollier puzzle," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-42, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    20. Gollier, Christian, 2016. "Gamma discounters are short-termist," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 83-90.
    21. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Discounting, risk and inequality: A general approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 34-49.
    22. Mark C. Freeman & Ben Groom, 2015. "Positively Gamma Discounting: Combining the Opinions of Experts on the Social Discount Rate," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1015-1024, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00394035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.