IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/128517.html

Social discounting and the cost of public funds: problems with current global practice

Author

Listed:
  • Spackman, Michael

Abstract

Since the early days of social discounting, in the 1960s, three mutually inconsistent approaches have become globally embedded. All face significant analytical and/or practical problems. This essay reviews the issues, why the divisions persist, and the contexts in which the inconsistencies may contribute significantly to misleading analysis. It concludes that there may never be any broad global consensus on best practice, but identifies aspects where limited progress may sometimes be feasible.

Suggested Citation

  • Spackman, Michael, 2025. "Social discounting and the cost of public funds: problems with current global practice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 128517, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:128517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/128517/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feldstein, Martin, 1997. "How Big Should Government Be?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(2), pages 197-213, June.
    2. 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..
    3. Michael Spackman, 2024. "The social discount rate and the cost of public funds: a search for more consistency and better practice," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 228-242, April.
    4. Feldstein, Martin, 1997. "How Big Should Government Be?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(2), pages 197-213, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    7. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. Neszveda, G., 2019. "Essays on behavioral finance," Other publications TiSEM 05059039-5236-42a3-be1b-3, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Jack Clark Francis, 2021. "Reformulating prospect theory to become a von Neumann–Morgenstern theory," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 965-985, April.
    4. Christiane Goodfellow & Dirk Schiereck & Steffen Wippler, 2013. "Are behavioural finance equity funds a superior investment? A note on fund performance and market efficiency," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 14(2), pages 111-119, April.
    5. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Equity Puzzles," MPRA Paper 68729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Lovric, M. & Kaymak, U. & Spronk, J., 2008. "A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-030-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    7. Christian Gollier & James Hammitt & Nicolas Treich, 2013. "Risk and choice: A research saga," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 129-145, October.
    8. Slemrod, Joel, 1998. "Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 4), pages 773-88, December.
    9. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    10. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    11. Thierry Chauveau & Nicolas Nalpas, 1999. "Risk Weighted Utility Theory as a Solution to the Equity Premium Puzzle," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla99020, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    12. Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe & Giovanni Ponti & Josefa Tomás, 2016. "Myopic Loss Aversion under Ambiguity and Gender Effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(12), pages 1-11, December.
    13. Zeisberger, Stefan & Langer, Thomas & Trede, Mark, 2007. "A note on myopic loss aversion and the equity premium puzzle," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 127-136, June.
    14. Stephan Schulmeister, 2000. "Technical Analysis and Exchange Rate Dynamics," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 25857.
    15. Zimper, Alexander, 2012. "Asset pricing in a Lucas fruit-tree economy with the best and worst in mind," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 610-628.
    16. Eriksen, Kristoffer W. & Kvaløy, Ola, 2014. "Myopic risk-taking in tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 37-46.
    17. Enrico G. De Giorgi & Thierry Post, 2011. "Loss Aversion with a State-Dependent Reference Point," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(6), pages 1094-1110, June.
    18. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    19. Ming Chung Chang & Shufen Wu, 2011. "Should Marginal Cost of Public Funds include the Revenue Effect?," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(I), pages 1-16, March.
    20. Uri Gneezy & Arie Kapteyn & Jan Potters, 2003. "Evaluation Periods and Asset Prices in a Market Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 821-837, April.

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:128517. 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.