IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ucbecw/120418.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Discounting and confidence

Author

Listed:
  • Traeger, Christian P.

Abstract

The paper analyzes the discount rate under uncertainty. The analysis complements the probabilistic characterization of uncertainty by a measure of confidence. Special cases of the model comprise discounting under smooth ambiguity aversion as well as discounting under a disentanglement of risk aversion from aversion to intertemporal substitution. The paper characterizes the general class of preferences for which uncertainty implies a reduction of the discount rate. It also characterizes how the more comprehensive description of uncertainty changes the discount rate with respect to the standard model. The paper relates different results in the literature by switching between different risk measures. It presents a parametric extension of the Ramsey discounting formula that takes into account confidence into future growth estimates and a measure of aversion to the lack of confidence. If confidence decreases in the futurity of the growth forecast, the discount rates have a falling term structure even in the case of an iid growth process.

Suggested Citation

  • Traeger, Christian P., 2011. "Discounting and confidence," CUDARE Working Papers 120418, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ucbecw:120418
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.120418
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/120418/files/CUDARE%201117R%20Traeger.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.120418?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miles Kimball & Philippe Weil, 2009. "Precautionary Saving and Consumption Smoothing across Time and Possibilities," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2‐3), pages 245-284, March.
    2. Gierlinger, Johannes & Gollier, Christian, 2008. "Socially Efficient Discounting under Ambiguity Aversion," IDEI Working Papers 561, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    3. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    4. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    5. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 686-702, September.
    6. Klibanoff, Peter & Marinacci, Massimo & Mukerji, Sujoy, 2009. "Recursive smooth ambiguity preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 930-976, May.
    7. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    8. Philippe Weil, 1990. "Nonexpected Utility in Macroeconomics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 29-42.
    9. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    10. Gollier, Christian, 2002. "Time Horizon and the Discount Rate," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 463-473, December.
    11. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 1996. "The Equity Premium: It's Still a Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 42-71, March.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
    14. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    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. Christian Traeger, 2014. "Why uncertainty matters: discounting under intertemporal risk aversion and ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 627-664, August.
    2. Lemoine, Derek & Traeger, Christian P., 2016. "Ambiguous tipping points," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PB), pages 5-18.
    3. Jensen, Svenn & Traeger, Christian P., 2014. "Optimal climate change mitigation under long-term growth uncertainty: Stochastic integrated assessment and analytic findings," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 104-125.

    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. Traeger, Christian P., 2011. "Discounting and confidence," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt61m836d1, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    2. Christian Traeger, 2014. "Why uncertainty matters: discounting under intertemporal risk aversion and ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(3), pages 627-664, August.
    3. Berger, Loïc, 2014. "Precautionary saving and the notion of ambiguity prudence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 248-251.
    4. Luciana Echazu & Diego Nocetti, 2013. "Priority Setting In Health Care: Disentangling Risk Aversion From Inequality Aversion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 730-740, June.
    5. Loïc Berger & Johannes Emmerling & Massimo Tavoni, 2017. "Managing Catastrophic Climate Risks Under Model Uncertainty Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 749-765, March.
    6. Peter, Richard, 2019. "Revisiting precautionary saving under ambiguity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 123-127.
    7. Loïc Berger, 2011. "Does Ambiguity Aversion Raise the Optimal Level of Effort? A Two-Period Model," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2011-021, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Traeger, Christian P., 2009. "The Social Discount Rate under Intertemporal Risk Aversion and Ambiguity," CUDARE Working Papers 55785, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    9. Loïc Berger, 2016. "The impact of ambiguity and prudence on prevention decisions," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 80(3), pages 389-409, March.
    10. Loïc Berger, 2014. "The Impact of Ambiguity Prudence on Insurance and Prevention," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-08, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Antony Millner & Simon Dietz & Geoffrey Heal, 2013. "Scientific Ambiguity and Climate Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(1), pages 21-46, May.
    12. W. Botzen & Jeroen Bergh, 2014. "Specifications of Social Welfare in Economic Studies of Climate Policy: Overview of Criteria and Related Policy Insights," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(1), pages 1-33, May.
    13. Daria Pignalosa, 2019. "On the role of the utility function in the estimation of preference parameters," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 793-820, November.
    14. Hippolyte d’Albis & Emmanuel Thibault, 2018. "Ambiguous life expectancy and the demand for annuities," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 303-319, October.
    15. Massimo Guidolin & Francesca Rinaldi, 2013. "Ambiguity in asset pricing and portfolio choice: a review of the literature," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 183-217, February.
    16. Echazu Luciana & Nocetti Diego & Smith William T., 2012. "A New Look into the Determinants of the Ecological Discount Rate: Disentangling Social Preferences," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-44, April.
    17. Nocetti, Diego & Smith, William T., 2011. "Price uncertainty, saving, and welfare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 1139-1149, July.
    18. Simon Quemin, 2016. "Intertemporal abatement decisions under ambiguity aversion in a cap and trade," Working Papers 1604, Chaire Economie du climat.
    19. Li, Jian, 2020. "Preferences for partial information and ambiguity," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    20. Thimme, Julian & Völkert, Clemens, 2015. "High order smooth ambiguity preferences and asset prices," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 1-15.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Risk and Uncertainty;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:ucbecw:120418. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dabrkus.html .

    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.