IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/91187.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why expected discount factors yield incorrect expected present values

Author

Listed:
  • Szekeres, Szabolcs

Abstract

Compound and discount factors determine the relationship between present and future values. When interest rates are stochastic, expected compound factors are computed by probability weighting all possible compound factors. It is customary to proceed likewise to compute expected discount factors. It has been noted that risk neutral certainty equivalent interest rates differ when computed from expected compound or expected discount factors, yielding alternative project rankings. This paper shows that expected discount factors yield incorrect expected present values because, unlike in the deterministic case, they are not the reciprocals of the corresponding expected compound factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2018. "Why expected discount factors yield incorrect expected present values," MPRA Paper 91187, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Jan 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:91187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/91187/1/MPRA_paper_91187.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Ben Groom & Cameron Hepburn & Phoebe Koundouri & David Pearce, 2005. "Declining Discount Rates: The Long and the Short of it," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 32(4), pages 445-493, December.
    3. Pazner, Elisha A & Razin, Assaf, 1975. "On Expected Value vs. Expected Future Value," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 30(3), pages 875-877, June.
    4. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "Checking the Evidence for Declining Discount Rates," MPRA Paper 102233, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "The real solution of the Weitzman-Gollier Puzzle," MPRA Paper 102344, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "Correcting the Error in Gamma Discounting," MPRA Paper 102232, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jul 2020.

    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. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "Correcting the Error in Gamma Discounting," MPRA Paper 102232, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jul 2020.
    2. Gollier, Christian, 2016. "Gamma discounters are short-termist," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 83-90.
    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. Gollier, Christian, 2010. "Expected net present value, expected net future value, and the Ramsey rule," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 142-148, March.
    5. Gollier, Christian & Weitzman, Martin L., 2010. "How should the distant future be discounted when discount rates are uncertain?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 350-353, June.
    6. Jouini, Elyès & Napp, Clotilde, 2014. "How to aggregate experts' discount rates: An equilibrium approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 235-243.
    7. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2015. "When should the distant future not be discounted at increasing discount rates?," MPRA Paper 63437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "The real solution of the Weitzman-Gollier Puzzle," MPRA Paper 102344, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Gollier, Christian, 2009. "Should we Discount the Far-Distant Future at its Lowest Possible Rate?," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-14.
    10. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2024. "Resolving the Discounting Dilemma," MPRA Paper 120014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Groom, Ben & Hepburn, Cameron & Koundouri, Phoebe & Pearce, David, 2007. "Implications of declining discount rates: Climate Change Policy in the UK," MPRA Paper 38428, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Freeman, Mark C., 2010. "Yes, we should discount the far-distant future at its lowest possible rate: A resolution of the Weitzman-Gollier puzzle," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-21.
    13. Desheng Wu & Shuzhen Chen, 2017. "Benchmarking Discount Rate in Natural Resource Damage Assessment with Risk Aversion," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(8), pages 1522-1531, August.
    14. Wolfgang Buchholz, 2014. "Discounting in an Uncertain World - Disentangling the Debate on the Weitzman-Gollier Puzzle," CESifo Working Paper Series 4967, CESifo.
    15. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4987 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Lanlan Luo & Shou Chen & Ziran Zou, 2020. "Determining the Generalized Discount Rate for Risky Projects," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 77(1), pages 143-158, September.
    17. 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).
    18. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2015. "Discounting, risk and inequality: A general approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 34-49.
    19. Winkler, Ralph, 2009. "Now or Never: Environmental Protection under Hyperbolic Discounting," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-22.
    20. Traeger, Christian P., 2012. "What's the Rate? Disentangling the Weitzman and the Gollier Effect," CUDARE Working Papers 121932, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    21. Roger Fouquet, 2012. "Economics of Energy and Climate Change: Origins, Developments and Growth," Working Papers 2012-08, BC3.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Weitzman-Gollier Puzzle; declining discount rates; discounting.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

    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:pra:mprapa:91187. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.