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Global warming and hyperbolic discounting

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  • Karp, Larry

Abstract

The use of a constant discount rate to study long-lived environmental problems such as global warming has two disadvantages: the prescribed policy is sensitive to the discount rate, and with moderate discount rates, large future damages have almost no effect on current decisions. Time-consistent quasi-hyperbolic discounting alleviates both of these modeling problems, and is a plausible description of how people think about the future. We analyze the time-consistent Markov Perfect equilibrium in a general model with a stock pollutant. The solution to the linear-quadratic specialization illustrates the role of hyperbolic discounting in a model of global warming. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Suggested Citation

  • Karp, Larry, 2005. "Global warming and hyperbolic discounting," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt1n62c5cc, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt1n62c5cc
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