A Theory of Average Growth Rate Indices

This paper develops an axiomatic theory of an economic variable average growth rate (average rate of change) measurement. The structures that we obtain generalize the conventional measures for average rate of growth (such as the difference quotient, the continuously compounded growth rate, etc.) to an arbitrary domain of the underlying variable and comprise various models of growth. These structures can be described with the help of intertemporal choice theory by means of parametric families of time preference relations on the “prize-time” space with a parameter representing the subjective discount rate.