We examine an economy whose consumers have different discount factors for utility, possibly not exponential. We characterize the properties of efficient allocations of resources and of the shadow prices that would decentralize such allocations. We show in particular that the representative agent has a decreasing discount rate when, as is usually posited, all of a group’s members have a constant...

I present a multi-impact economic valuation framework called the Social Cost of Atmospheric Release (SCAR) that extends the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) used previously for carbon dioxide (CO2) to a broader range of pollutants and impacts. Values consistently incorporate health impacts of air quality along with climate damages. The latter include damages associated with aerosol-induced hydrologi...

In this paper we ask whether the US government should replace its current discounting practices with a declining discount rate schedule, as the UK and France have done, or should continue to discount the future at a constant exponential rate. To address the question, we briefly present the theoretical basis for a declining discount rate (DDR) schedule, but focus on how, in practice, a DDR could...