IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/hal-04487520.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unilateral Dominance and Social Discounting

Author

Listed:
  • Xiangyu Qu

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Bach Dong Xuan

    (UEL - University of Economics and Law [Vietnam National University, HCM] - VNU-HCM - Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City / Đại học Quốc gia TP. Hồ Chí Minh)

Abstract

This paper addresses the intricate challenge of establishing social discount rates across far-reaching generations, particularly in the face of divergent social viewpoints. We propose a principle of future-improved unilateral dominance to characterize social discount rates. Despite its divergence from traditional principles, our principle prioritizes the welfare of distant generations, resonating with a minority concern within society. Our findings indicate that society adhering to this principle exhibit greater patience and future-oriented concern than any individual. TThis approach, contingent upon the preferences of current generations, offers theoretical pathways to enhance considerations for the welfare of the distant future in the context of long-term environmental projects or activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiangyu Qu & Bach Dong Xuan, 2024. "Unilateral Dominance and Social Discounting," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-04487520, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-04487520
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04487520
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04487520/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen A. Marglin, 1963. "The Social Rate of Discount and The Optimal Rate of Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 77(1), pages 95-111.
    2. Weitzman, Martin L., 1998. "Why the Far-Distant Future Should Be Discounted at Its Lowest Possible Rate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 201-208, November.
    3. Stéphane Zuber, 2011. "The aggregation of preferences: can we ignore the past?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 367-384, March.
    4. Millner, Antony & Heal, Geoffrey, 2018. "Time consistency and time invariance in collective intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 158-169.
    5. Matthew O. Jackson & Leeat Yariv, 2015. "Collective Dynamic Choice: The Necessity of Time Inconsistency," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 150-178, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Millner, Antony & Healey, Andrew, 2018. "Discounting by committee," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 90246, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Mikhail Pakhnin, 2021. "Collective Choice with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 9141, CESifo.
    3. Millner, Antony & Heal, Geoffrey, 2018. "Discounting by committee," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 91-104.
    4. Millner, Antony & Heal, Geoffrey, 2018. "Time consistency and time invariance in collective intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 158-169.
    5. Takashi Hayashi & Michele Lombardi, 2021. "Social discount rate: spaces for agreement," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 9(2), pages 247-257, October.
    6. 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.
    7. Jean-Pierre Drugeon & Bertrand Wigniolle, 2021. "On Markovian collective choice with heterogeneous quasi-hyperbolic discounting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(4), pages 1257-1296, November.
    8. Antony Millner & Geoffrey Heal, 2015. "Collective intertemporal choice: time consistency vs. time invariance," GRI Working Papers 220, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    9. Miyagishima, Kaname, 2023. "Time-consistent fair social choice," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(3), July.
    10. Antony Millner & Geoffrey Heal, 2016. "Collective Intertemporal Choice: the Possibility of Time Consistency," NBER Working Papers 22524, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ebert, Sebastian & Wei, Wei & Zhou, Xun Yu, 2020. "Weighted discounting—On group diversity, time-inconsistency, and consequences for investment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    12. Tangren Feng & Shaowei Ke, 2018. "Social Discounting and Intergenerational Pareto," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1537-1567, September.
    13. Anchugina, Nina & Ryan, Matthew & Slinko, Arkadii, 2019. "Mixing discount functions: Implications for collective time preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Mononen, Lasse, 2024. "Dynamically Consistent Intergenerational Welfare," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 687, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    15. Craig S. Webb, 2024. "Dynamic preference foundations of expected exponentially-discounted utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 77(4), pages 921-940, June.
    16. Voinov, Alexey & Farley, Joshua, 2007. "Reconciling sustainability, systems theory and discounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 104-113, June.
    17. Lemoine, Derek, 2018. "Age-induced acceleration of time: Implications for intertemporal choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 143-152.
    18. Luis A. Alcala, 2016. "On the time consistency of collective preferences," Papers 1607.02688, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2018.
    19. Geir B. Asheim & Kuntal Banerjee & Tapan Mitra, 2021. "How stationarity contradicts intergenerational equity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(2), pages 423-444, September.
    20. Bach Dong Xuan & Philippe Bich & Bertrand Wigniolle, 2022. "On multiple discount rates and present bias," Working Papers halshs-03884664, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social discounting; future-improved unilateral dominance; long-term environmental projects;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:cesptp:hal-04487520. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.