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Reflections—Looking Back at Social Discounting Policy: The Influence of Papers, Presentations, Political Preconditions, and Personalities

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  • Ben Groom
  • Cameron Hepburn

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, government guidelines on social discounting for benefit–cost analysis have been updated in many different countries. These updates appear to reflect the influence of important academic contributions recommending the use of a declining term structure of discount rates. Using qualitative evidence from the United Kingdom, United States, France, and The Netherlands, this article shows that the influence of this academic supply side would not have been possible without the policy demand side and the presence of institutional or charismatic policy brokers acting as policy market makers. We argue that the market analogy is a useful framework for academics seeking to influence policy with their research.

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  • Ben Groom & Cameron Hepburn, 2017. "Reflections—Looking Back at Social Discounting Policy: The Influence of Papers, Presentations, Political Preconditions, and Personalities," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 336-356.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:renvpo:v:11:y:2017:i:2:p:336-356.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/reep/rex015
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Thomas Sterner & U. Martin Persson, 2008. "An Even Sterner Review: Introducing Relative Prices into the Discounting Debate," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 2(1), pages 61-76, Winter.
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    Cited by:

    1. Quaas, Martin F. & Baumgärtner, Stefan & Drupp, Moritz A. & Meya, Jasper N., 2020. "Intertemporal utility with heterogeneous goods and constant elasticity of substitution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    2. Moritz A. Drupp & Martin C. Hänsel, 2021. "Relative Prices and Climate Policy: How the Scarcity of Nonmarket Goods Drives Policy Evaluation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 168-201, February.
    3. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2020. "Correcting the Error in Gamma Discounting," MPRA Paper 102232, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Jul 2020.
    4. Nesje, Frikk, 2020. "Cross-dynastic Intergenerational Altruism," Working Papers 0678, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    5. David Klenert & Franziska Funke & Linus Mattauch & Brian O’Callaghan, 2020. "Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(4), pages 751-778, August.
    6. Ben Groom & David Maddison Pr., 2019. "New Estimates of the Elasticity of Marginal Utility for the UK," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 1155-1182, April.
    7. Jonas Heckenhahn & Moritz A. Drupp, 2024. "Relative Price Changes of Ecosystem Services: Evidence from Germany," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(3), pages 833-880, March.
    8. Emmerling, Johannes & Groom, Ben & Wettingfeld, Tanja, 2017. "Discounting and the representative median agent," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 78-81.
    9. Ben Groom & Zachary Turk, 2021. "Reflections on the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(1), pages 1-23, May.
    10. Zhu, Xueqin & Smulders, Sjak & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2019. "Discounting in the presence of scarce ecosystem services," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    11. Szekeres, Szabolcs, 2022. "Answering the social discount rate question," MPRA Paper 115848, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Venmans, Frank & Groom, Ben, 2021. "Social discounting, inequality aversion, and the environment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Frikk Nesje & Moritz A. Drupp & Mark C. Freeman & Ben Groom, 2022. "Philosophers and Economists Can Agree on the Intergenerational Discount Rate and Climate Policy Paths," CESifo Working Paper Series 9930, CESifo.
    14. Moritz A. Drupp & Zachary M. Turk & Ben Groom & Jonas Heckenhahn, 2023. "Limited substitutability, relative price changes and the uplifting of public natural capital values," Papers 2308.04400, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    15. Mark Budolfson & Francis Dennig & Marc Fleurbaey & Asher Siebert & Robert H. Socolow, 2017. "The comparative importance for optimal climate policy of discounting, inequalities and catastrophes," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 481-494, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

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

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