Properties of the Social Discount Rate in a Benthamite Framework with Heterogeneous Degrees of Impatience (vol 54, pg 1822, 2008)

• 成果类型: Correction
• 署名作者: Nocetti, Diego; Jouini, Elyes; Napp, Clotilde
• 署名单位: Clarkson University; Universite PSL; Universite Paris-Dauphine; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); CNRS - Institute for Humanities & Social Sciences (INSHS); Universite PSL; Universite Paris-Dauphine
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1080.0904
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 1822-1826
• 关键词: Social discount rate; hyperbolic discounting; Cost-benefit analysis

摘要

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 the discount rate of the most patient individual in the economy. These properties hold for both constant and decreasing individual discount rates. Finally, we evaluate how changes in the distribution of individual discount rates affect the social discount rate.