Discounting by committee

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Millner, Antony; Heal, Geoffrey
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.09.005
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 91-104
• 关键词: Collective decisions; intertemporal choice; time inconsistency; social discounting

摘要

We study a dynamic social choice problem in which a sequence of committees must decide how to consume a public asset. A committee convened at time t decides on consumption at t, accounting for the behaviour of future committees. Committee members disagree about the appropriate value of the pure rate of time preference, but must nevertheless reach a decision. If each committee aggregates its members' preferences in a utilitarian manner, the collective preferences of successive committees will be time inconsistent, and they will implement inefficient consumption plans. If however committees decide on the level of consumption by a majoritarian vote in each period, they may improve on the consumption plans implemented by utilitarian committees. Using a simple model, we show that this occurs in empirically plausible cases. Application to the problem of choosing the social discount rate is discussed. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.