This paper derives the properties of the discount rate that should be applied to a public-sector project when the affected population has heterogeneous degrees of impatience. We show that, for any distribution of discount rates, the social discount rate has the following properties: it decreases over time, it is lower than the average of the discount rates in the population and, it converges to...

Purpose We conduct a hypothetical dictator game with social distance and time delays using conjoint analysis. Design / methodology / approach Responses from 1,347 Japanese adults are collected through an online survey, and their responses are analyzed using a random parameter logit model. Findings Social preference for the present income of a stranger equals social preference for the income of ...

The approach adopted in this paper in order to measure the US social discount rate is market-driven and relies on trade-offs in financial markets. The underlying assumptions are that public budgets displace the marginal private investment, and that US citizens borrow to finance home mortgages. The average debt capacity of the US citizen, or the representative investor, is 20%. It is argued that...

Recent debates over the economics of climate change underscore the importance of what at first blush is a narrow technical issue in welfare economics and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Yet even before the need to study the economics of climate change, debate over both nuclear energy policy and water resource policy highlighted the fateful role that social discount rates play in policy prescriptio...

This working note provides a basic overview of discounting in the context of climate change policy. After defining the social discount factor and social discount rate in terms of shadow prices (section 2), and noting the limitations of cost-benefit analysis for climate change (section 3), the determination of efficient social discount rates is discussed given: the impact of uncertainty about fu...

T he optimal allocation of natural gas resources to various uses such as final and intermediate consumption, injection into oil fields, and exports can help policymakers to use this kind of resources efficiently. Empirical evidence support using hyperbolic discount rates instead of fixed discount rates in the economic literature. The purpose of this study is to maximize the social we...

background : the present study aimed to provide better insight on methodological issues related to time preference studies, and to estimate private and social discount rates, using a rigorous systematic review and meta-analysis. methods : we searched pubmed, embase and proquest databases in june 2013. all studies had estimated private and social time preference rates for health outcomes through...