IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceps/v67y2019icp78-85.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimation of a social discount rate for Turkey

Author

Listed:
  • Akbulut, Hale
  • Seçilmiş, Erdem

Abstract

Cost-benefit analysis is probably the most comprehensive method of economic evaluation for public projects. Social discount rate, which makes it possible to compare the social benefits and costs extended over a period of time, has a key role in the allocation of public resources between alternative ends via cost-benefit analysis. Public sector needs to use the correct social discount rate in order to achieve a fair allocation of the fiscal burden between generations. While a high social discount rate may place a heavy fiscal burden on future generations, a low social discount rate may cause unfeasible projects to be approved. However, although social discount rate is a crucial parameter for public project appraisals, there is a lack of updated social discount rate for Turkey. In this study, the social rate of time preference approach is used to estimate this social discount rate. To this aim, both the personal taxation and the food demand methods are employed in order to estimate the elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption, which is a critical determinant of the social rate of time preference based on the Ramsey formula. The overall results show that the social discount rate estimated using the personal tax method is 4.88%, whereas it is 4.41% using the food demand method. Since the level of tax evasion is very high in Turkey, we recommend that the value indicated by the food demand method should be used employing the autoregressive distributed lag cointegration procedure.

Suggested Citation

  • Akbulut, Hale & Seçilmiş, Erdem, 2019. "Estimation of a social discount rate for Turkey," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-85.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:67:y:2019:i:c:p:78-85
    DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2018.10.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003801211730318X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.seps.2018.10.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert B. Barsky & Miles S. Kimball & F. Thomas Juster & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1995. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Survey," NBER Working Papers 5213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Haluk Sezer, 2006. "Regional welfare weights for Turkey," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 33(5), pages 357-368, November.
    3. Robert W. Hahn & Richard L. Schmalensee & Roger Noll & Robert Stavins & Lester B. Lave & George C. Eads & Milton Russell & V. Kerry Smith & Maureen L. Cropper & Paul R. Portney & Kenneth J. Arrow, 1996. "Benefit-Cost Analysis in Environmental, Health, and Safety Regulation: A Statement of Principles," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 51790, September.
    4. Erhun Kula, 2004. "Estimation of a Social Rate of Interest for India," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 91-99, March.
    5. ., 1994. "Cost-Benefit Analysis," Chapters, in: Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Warren J. Samuels & Marc R. Tool (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics, volume 0, chapter 19, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Emeka Nkoro & Aham Kelvin Uko, 2016. "Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration technique: application and interpretation," Journal of Statistical and Econometric Methods, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 5(4), pages 1-3.
    7. Moore Mark A. & Boardman Anthony E. & Vining Aidan R., 2013. "More appropriate discounting: the rate of social time preference and the value of the social discount rate," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, March.
    8. Michael Spackman, 2004. "Time discounting and of the cost of capital in government," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 467-518, December.
    9. David J. Evans, 2005. "The elasticity of marginal utility of consumption: estimates for 20 OECD countries," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 197-224, June.
    10. Mareike Schad & Jürgen John, 2012. "Towards a social discount rate for the economic evaluation of health technologies in Germany: an exploratory analysis," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(2), pages 127-144, April.
    11. Bradford, David F, 1975. "Constraints on Government Investment Opportunities and the Choice of Discount Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 887-899, December.
    12. David F. Burgess & Richard O. Zerbe, 2013. "Appropriate discounting for benefit–cost analysis," Chapters, in: Scott O. Farrow & Richard Zerbe, Jr. (ed.), Principles and Standards for Benefit–Cost Analysis, chapter 7, pages 247-263, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    14. Peter Diamond, 1968. "The Opportunity Costs of Public Investment: Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(4), pages 682-688.
    15. David Evans, 2004. "A social discount rate for France," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(13), pages 803-808.
    16. Burgess, David F., 2013. "Reconciling alternative views about the appropriate social discount rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 9-17.
    17. Lopez, Humberto, 2008. "The social discount rate : estimates for nine Latin American countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4639, The World Bank.
    18. David J. Evans & Haluk Sezer, 2005. "Social discount rates for member countries of the European Union," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 32(1), pages 47-59, January.
    19. R. A. Sharma & M. J. McGregor & J. F. Blyth, 1991. "The Social Discount Rate For Land‐Use Projects In India," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 86-92, January.
    20. David F. Burgess, 1989. "The Social Opportunity Cost of Capital in the Presence of Labour Market Distortions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 245-262, May.
    21. E Kula, 1985. "An Empirical Investigation on the Social Time-Preference Rate for the United Kingdom," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 17(2), pages 199-212, February.
    22. Barry Williams, 2008. "Methods explained: Cost-benefi t analysis," Economic & Labour Market Review, Palgrave Macmillan;Office for National Statistics, vol. 2(10), pages 57-67, December.
    23. Kay, J. A., 1972. "Social discount rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 359-378, November.
    24. David Evans & Haluk Sezer, 2002. "A time preference measure of the social discount rate for the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(15), pages 1925-1934.
    25. Ferda Halicioglu & Cevat Karatas, 2011. "Estimation of Economic Discounting Rate for Practical Project Appraisal: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 45(1), pages 155-166, July-Dece.
    26. Ferda Halicioglu & Cevat Karatas, 2013. "A social discount rate for Turkey," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 1085-1091, February.
    27. Haluk Sezer, 2007. "Derivation of Regional Welfare Weights: An Application to Turkey," Chapters, in: Massimo Florio (ed.), Cost–Benefit Analysis and Incentives in Evaluation, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    28. David Pearce, 1999. "Economics and Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 354.
    29. repec:reg:rpubli:98 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Liu, Liqun, 2003. "A marginal cost of funds approach to multi-period public project evaluation: implications for the social discount rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1707-1718, August.
    31. Erhun Kula, 1984. "Derivation of Social Time Preference Rates for the United States and Canada," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(4), pages 873-882.
    32. Burgess, David F. & Zerbe, Richard O., 2011. "Appropriate Discounting for Benefit-Cost Analysis," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 1-20, April.
    33. Yoram Amiel & John Creedy & Stan Hurn, 1999. "Measuring Attitudes Towards Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(1), pages 83-96, March.
    34. David Evans & Haluk Sezer, 2004. "Social discount rates for six major countries," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(9), pages 557-560.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monika Foltyn-Zarychta & Rafał Buła & Krystian Pera, 2021. "Discounting for Energy Transition Policies—Estimation of the Social Discount Rate for Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, January.
    2. Moazzen, Farid & Alikhani, Majid & Aghaei, Jamshid & Hossain, M.J., 2024. "Social welfare evaluation during demand response programs execution considering machine learning-based load profile clustering," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 357(C).
    3. Rafał Buła & Monika Foltyn-Zarychta, 2022. "Declining Discount Rates for Energy Policy Investments in CEE EU Member Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mareike Schad & Jürgen John, 2012. "Towards a social discount rate for the economic evaluation of health technologies in Germany: an exploratory analysis," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(2), pages 127-144, April.
    2. David J. EVANS, 2006. "Social discount rates for the European Union," Departmental Working Papers 2006-20, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    3. Arian Daneshmand & Esfandiar Jahangard & Mahnoush Abdollah-Milani, 2018. "A time preference measure of the social discount rate for Iran," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. David EVANS & Erhun KULA, 2009. "Social discount rates and welfare weights for public investment decisions under budgetary restrictions – the case of Cyprus," Departmental Working Papers 2009-19, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    5. Moore, Mark A. & Boardman, Anthony E. & Vining, Aidan R., 2013. "More appropriate discounting: the rate of social time preference and the value of the social discount rate," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, March.
    6. Jinchi Dong & Richard S. J. Tol & Fangzhi Wang, 2024. "Towards a representative social cost of carbon," Papers 2404.04989, arXiv.org.
    7. Ferda Halicioglu & Cevat Karatas, 2013. "A social discount rate for Turkey," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 1085-1091, February.
    8. Massimo Florio & Emanuela Sirtori, 2013. "The social cost of capital: recent estimates for the EU countries," Working Papers 201303, CSIL Centre for Industrial Studies.
    9. Raúl Castro & Jorge Armando Rueda Gallardo, 2020. "Estimación Empírica de la Tasa Social de Descuento Estudio de Caso Bolivia," Documentos CEDE 18020, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    10. Monika Foltyn-Zarychta & Rafał Buła & Krystian Pera, 2021. "Discounting for Energy Transition Policies—Estimation of the Social Discount Rate for Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, January.
    11. Rafał Buła & Monika Foltyn-Zarychta, 2022. "Declining Discount Rates for Energy Policy Investments in CEE EU Member Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, December.
    12. Moore, Mark A. & Boardman, Anthony E. & Vining, Aidan R., 2013. "The choice of the social discount rate and the opportunity cost of public funds," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 401-409, December.
    13. Jan Kubíček & Leoš Vítek, 2010. "Hodnocení veřejných projektů z hlediska společenské míry diskontace [Evaluation of Public Projects from the Viewpoint of Social Rate of Discount]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2010(3), pages 291-304.
    14. Burgess David F. & Zerbe Richard O., 2013. "The most appropriate discount rate," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 391-400, December.
    15. Mark A. Moore & Anthony E. Boardman & Aidan R. Vining, 2020. "Social Discount Rates for Seventeen Latin American Countries: Theory and Parameter Estimation," Public Finance Review, , vol. 48(1), pages 43-71, January.
    16. Abeer Al Yaqoobi & Marcel Ausloos, 2022. "An Intergenerational Issue: The Equity Issues due to Public-Private Partnerships. The Critical Aspect of the Social Discount Rate Choice for Future Generations," Papers 2201.09064, arXiv.org.
    17. Michael Spackman, 2011. "Government discounting controversies: the valuation of social time preference," GRI Working Papers 68, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    18. Ferda Halicioglu & Cevat Karatas, 2011. "Estimation of Economic Discounting Rate for Practical Project Appraisal: The Case of Turkey," Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, College of Business, vol. 45(1), pages 155-166, July-Dece.
    19. Lopez, Humberto, 2008. "The social discount rate : estimates for nine Latin American countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4639, The World Bank.
    20. Ben Groom & David Maddison Pr., 2019. "New Estimates of the Elasticity of Marginal Utility for the UK," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 1155-1182, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceps:v:67:y:2019:i:c:p:78-85. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/seps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.