IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/12841963.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Determining Benefits and Costs for Future Generations

Author

Listed:
  • Arrow, K.
  • Cropper, M.
  • Gollier, C.
  • Groom, B.
  • Heal, G.
  • Newell, R.
  • Nordhaus, W.
  • Pindyck, R.
  • Pizer, W.
  • Portney, P.
  • Sterner, T.
  • Tol, R. S. J.
  • Weitzman, Martin L.

Abstract

In economic project analysis, the rate at which future benefits and costs are discounted relative to current values often determines whether a project passes the benefit-cost test. This is especially true of projects with long time horizons, such as those to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Whether the benefits of climate policies, which can last for centuries, outweigh the costs, many of which are borne today, is especially sensitive to the rate at which future benefits are discounted. This is also true of other policies, e.g., affecting nuclear waste disposal or the construction of long-lived infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • Arrow, K. & Cropper, M. & Gollier, C. & Groom, B. & Heal, G. & Newell, R. & Nordhaus, W. & Pindyck, R. & Pizer, W. & Portney, P. & Sterner, T. & Tol, R. S. J. & Weitzman, Martin L., 2013. "Determining Benefits and Costs for Future Generations," Scholarly Articles 12841963, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:12841963
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12841963/Determining%20Benefits%20and%20Costs%20for%20Future%20Generations.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hrv:faseco:12841963. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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.