IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/119814.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The social discount rate and the cost of public funds: a search for more consistency and better practice

Author

Listed:
  • Spackman, Michael

Abstract

Three, mutually inconsistent approaches to social discounting and the cost of public funds have persisted for fifty years. All have distinguished academic support. All present problems of concept and/or application. This leads to a global loss of cost effectiveness in public spending and regulation. This essay reviews the issues and offers a practitioner’s view on what limited but realistic potential there may be for more consistency and better practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Spackman, Michael, 2023. "The social discount rate and the cost of public funds: a search for more consistency and better practice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119814, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:119814
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/119814/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. Harberger, Arnold C. & Jenkins, Glenn P., 2015. "Musings on the Social Discount Rate 1," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 6-32, April.
    3. Mankiw, N Gregory & Shapiro, Matthew D, 1986. "Risk and Return: Consumption Beta versus Market Beta," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(3), pages 452-459, August.
    4. Brealey, R A & Cooper, I A & Habib, M A, 1997. "Investment Appraisal in the Public Sector," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 13(4), pages 12-28, Winter.
    5. Boardman, Anthony E. & Greenberg, David H. & Vining, Aidan R. & Weimer, David L., 2020. "Efficiency without Apology: Consideration of the Marginal Excess Tax Burden and Distributional Impacts in Benefit–Cost Analysis," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(3), pages 457-478, October.
    6. Bos, Frits & van der Pol, Thomas & Romijn, Gerbert, 2019. "Should Benefit-Cost Analysis Include a Correction for the Marginal Excess Burden of Taxation?," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(3), pages 379-403, October.
    7. Nicholas Barberis & Abhiroop Mukherjee & Baolian Wang, 2016. "Prospect Theory and Stock Returns: An Empirical Test," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(11), pages 3068-3107.
    8. Stephen A. Marglin, 1963. "The Opportunity Costs of Public Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 77(2), pages 274-289.
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Christian Gollier & James K. Hammitt, 2014. "The Long-Run Discount Rate Controversy," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 273-295, October.
    11. Amy Finkelstein & Nathaniel Hendren, 2020. "Welfare Analysis Meets Causal Inference," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 146-167, Fall.
    12. Edwards, Sebastian, 1986. "Country risk, foreign borrowing, and the social discount rate in an open developing economy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(1, Supple), pages 79-96, March.
    13. Epstein, Larry G & Zin, Stanley E, 1991. "Substitution, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Consumption and Asset Returns: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 263-286, April.
    14. Amy Finkelstein & Nathaniel Hendren, 2020. "Welfare Analysis Meets Causal Inference," NBER Working Papers 27640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. William Nordhaus, 2019. "Climate Change: The Ultimate Challenge for Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 1991-2014, June.
    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. Keunbae Ahn, 2021. "Predictable Fluctuations in the Cross-Section and Time-Series of Asset Prices," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 1-2021.
    2. Spackman, Michael, 2021. "Social discounting and the cost of public funding in practice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111490, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Azam Mohammadzadeh & Mohammad Nabi Shahiki Tash & Reza Roshan, 2016. "Investigating and Comparing Some Consumption-based Asset Pricing Models: The Case of Iran," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 6(4), pages 1884-1894.
    4. K. Cuthbertson & D. Nitzsche & S. Hyde, 2007. "Monetary Policy And Behavioural Finance," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 935-969, December.
    5. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    6. Roman Frydman & Michael D. Goldberg & Søren Johansen & Katarina Juselius, 2008. "A Resolution of the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle: Imperfect Knowledge and Long Swings," Discussion Papers 08-31, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    7. Ågren, Martin, 2005. "Myopic Loss Aversion, the Equity Premium Puzzle, and GARCH," Working Paper Series 2005:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    8. Pascal St-Amour, 2004. "Ratchet vs Blasé Investors and Asset Markets," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-11, CIRANO.
    9. Willem H. Buiter, 2003. "James Tobin: An Appreciation of his Contribution to Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(491), pages 585-631, November.
    10. Nader Shahzad Virk, 2013. "Evidence for state and time nonseparable preferences: the case of Finland," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(24), pages 1821-1838, December.
    11. Elie Appelbaum & Parantap Basu, 2002. "Estimation of the Saving Function without Expected Utility," Working Papers 2002_13, York University, Department of Economics.
    12. Andrei Semenov, 2003. "High-Order Consumption Moments and Asset Pricing," Working Papers 2003_4, York University, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2005.
    13. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    14. Hardouvelis, Gikas A. & Kim, Dongcheol & Wizman, Thierry A., 1996. "Asset pricing models with and without consumption data: An empirical evaluation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 267-301, September.
    15. Campbell, John Y, 1993. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing without Consumption Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 487-512, June.
    16. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    17. Alexander L. Brown & Hwagyun Kim, 2014. "Do Individuals Have Preferences Used in Macro-Finance Models? An Experimental Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 939-958, April.
    18. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    19. Andrei Semenov, 2008. "Estimation of the consumption CAPM with imperfect sample separation information," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 333-348.
    20. Minh Hai Ngo & Marc Oliver Rieger & Shuonan Yuan, 2018. "The Fundamental Equity Premium and Ambiguity Aversion in an International Context," Risks, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-24, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    cost benefit analysis; cost of capital; cost of public funds; equity premium puzzle; public policy appraisal; social discounting; T&F deal;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General

    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:ehl:lserod:119814. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.