We analyze the role of "the" utility discount rate and its implications to generation-specific and societal altruism and egoism, respectively, in a neoclassical framework. It is worked out clearly, that two different utility discount rates have to be distinguished: An (inverse)...

The estimated values to society from long-term public projects, including climate change mitigation and infrastructure construction, are highly sensitive to the social discount rate (SDR) employed. Governmental guidance on social discounting has predominantly been based on input from expert...

Nearly all discussions about the appropriate consumption discount rate for climate change policy evaluation assume that a single discount rate concept applies. We argue that two distinct concepts and associated rates apply. We distinguish between a social-welfare-equivalent discount rate...

Climate is a persistent asset, bar none: changes in climate-related stocks have consequences spanning over centuries or possibly millennia to the future. To reconcile the discounting of such far-distant impacts and realism of the shorter-term decisions, we consider hyperbolic time-preferences in...

Climate is a persistent asset, bar none: changes in climate-related stocks have consequences spanning over centuries or possibly millennia to the future. To reconcile the discounting of such far-distant impacts and realism of the shorter-term decisions, we consider hyperbolic time-preferences in...

The paper clarifies the link between changes in risk aversion and the effect on the consumption discount rate. In a general framework that can cope with various forms of uncertainty, it is shown that the response of the consumption discount rate to a change in risk aversion depends on some...

The paper clarifies the link between changes in risk aversion and the effect on the consumption discount rate. In a general framework that can cope with various forms of uncertainty, it is shown that the response of the consumption discount rate to a change in risk aversion depends on some...

The estimated values to society from long-term public projects, including climate change mitigation and infrastructure construction, are highly sensitive to the social discount rate (SDR) employed. Governmental guidance on social discounting has predominantly been based on input from expert...