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Nondogmatic Social Discounting

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  • Antony Millner

Abstract

The long-run social discount rate has an enormous effect on the value of climate mitigation, infrastructure projects, and other long-term public policies. Its value is however highly contested, in part because of normative disagreements about social time preferences. I develop a theory of "nondogmatic" social planners, who are insecure in their current normative judgments and entertain the possibility that they may change. Although each nondogmatic planner advocates an idiosyncratic theory of intertemporal social welfare, all such planners agree on the long-run social discount rate. Nondogmatism thus goes some way toward resolving normative disagreements, especially for long-term public projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Antony Millner, 2020. "Nondogmatic Social Discounting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(3), pages 760-775, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:3:p:760-75
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20161007
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Lee, K. & Linton, O. & Whang, Y-J., 2020. "Testing for Time Stochastic Dominance," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 20121, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Moritz A. Drupp & Jasper N. Meya & Björn Bos & Simon Disque, 2024. "Heterogeneous Substitutability Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 11197, CESifo.
    3. Christopher P. Chambers & Federico Echenique & Alan D. Miller, 2023. "Decreasing Impatience," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 527-551, August.
    4. Rick Van der Ploeg, 2020. "Discounting And Climate Policy," OxCarre Working Papers 244, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    5. Lee, Kyungho & Linton, Oliver & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2023. "Testing for time stochastic dominance," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 352-371.
    6. Feng, Tangren & Ke, Shaowei & McMillan, Andrew, 2022. "Utilitarianism and social discounting with countably many generations," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    7. Graeme Guthrie, 2021. "Discounting, Disagreement, and the Option to Delay," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(1), pages 95-133, September.
    8. Jasper N. Meya & Stefan Baumgärtner & Moritz A. Drupp & Martin F. Quaas, 2020. "Inequality and the Value of Public Natural Capital," CESifo Working Paper Series 8752, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

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