IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jnlpup/v2y1982i01p53-71_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Discounting Discounting

Author

Listed:
  • Goodin, Robert E.

Abstract

Policy analysts typically presume that future payoffs should be discounted relative to present ones, and that this discounting should proceed at the same rate for all goods and all periods. Closer inspection of four arguments for discounting, however, shows these practices to be problematic. Only two of those arguments provide plausible justifications for time-discounting at all; and neither of those justify a constant rate throughout all periods or for all goods. Indeed, there is an important class of ‘nontradable’ goods which can be discounted only in their own terms. The overall conclusion is that policymakers ought, logically as well as morally, to weight the interests of the future far more heavily than in ordinary discounting procedures.

Suggested Citation

  • Goodin, Robert E., 1982. "Discounting Discounting," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 53-71, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:2:y:1982:i:01:p:53-71_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0143814X00001793/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Norman Henderson & Ian Bateman, 1995. "Empirical and public choice evidence for hyperbolic social discount rates and the implications for intergenerational discounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(4), pages 413-423, June.
    2. David F. Burgess & Richard O. Zerbe, 2013. "Appropriate discounting for benefit–cost analysis," Chapters, in: Scott O. Farrow & Richard Zerbe, Jr. (ed.), Principles and Standards for Benefit–Cost Analysis, chapter 7, pages 247-263, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Frederick, Shane, 2006. "Valuing future life and future lives: A framework for understanding discounting," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 667-680, October.
    4. Greenhalgh, S. & Samarasinghe, O. & Curran-Cournane, F. & Wright, W. & Brown, P., 2017. "Using ecosystem services to underpin cost–benefit analysis: Is it a way to protect finite soil resources?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(PA), pages 1-14.
    5. Stocker Klaus, 2020. "Financial and Economic Assessment of Tidal Stream Energy—A Case Study," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-20, August.
    6. Preston Greene, 2024. "Social bias, not time bias," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 23(1), pages 100-121, February.
    7. Secchi, Silvia, 2000. "Economic issues in resistance management," ISU General Staff Papers 2000010108000013359, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Carl Koopmans & Piet Rietveld, 2013. "Long-term impacts of mega-projects: the discount rate," Chapters, in: Hugo Priemus & Bert van Wee (ed.), International Handbook on Mega-Projects, chapter 14, pages 313-332, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov & Soderqvist, Tore, 1998. "Time spent on waiting lists for medical care: an insurance approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 627-644, October.
    10. Skonhoft, Anders, 1998. "Resource utilization, property rights and welfare--Wildlife and the local people," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 67-80, July.
    11. R. J. Lister, 2006. "The composition of interest: The judaic prohibition," Accounting History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 121-127.
    12. Musau, Andrew, 2009. "Modeling Alternatives to Exponential Discounting," MPRA Paper 16416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Norman Henderson & Ian Langford, 1998. "Cross-Disciplinary Evidence for Hyperbolic Social Discount Rates," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(11-Part-1), pages 1493-1500, November.
    14. Bereket Araya & John Asafu‐Adjaye, 1999. "Returns to Farm‐Level Soil Conservation on Tropical Steep Slopes: The Case of the Eritrean Highlands," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 589-605, September.

    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:cup:jnlpup:v:2:y:1982:i:01:p:53-71_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/pup .

    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.