On a social discount rate for forestry

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 927-934 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. Harou
Keyword(s):  
Discount Rate ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Cost Of Capital ◽  
Shadow Price ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Social Discount Rate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Forestry Investments ◽  
Present Worth

After a review of the literature on the discount rate in economics and forestry, a methodology is proposed to arrive at an appropriate social discount rate to appraise public forestry investments. In the proposed approach, the opportunity cost of capital is considered in the establishment of a shadow price of investment. The social discount rate, which should weight the project net social benefits through time, is an unknown of the net present worth equation set equal to zero.

scholarly journals The most appropriate discount rate

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (03) ◽  
pp. 391-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Burgess ◽  
Richard O. Zerbe
Keyword(s):  
Private Sector ◽  
Discount Rate ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Cost Of Capital ◽  
Rate Of Return ◽  
Social Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Benefits And Costs

The social opportunity cost of capital discount rate is the appropriate discount rate to use when evaluating government projects. It satisfies the fundamental rule that no project should be accepted that has a rate of return less than alternative available projects, and it ensures that worthy projects satisfy the potential Pareto test. The social time preference approach advocated by Moore et al. fails to satisfy either of these criteria even in the unlikely case that the private sector behaves myopically with respect to a project’s future benefits and costs.

scholarly journals The choice of the social discount rate and the opportunity cost of public funds

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (03) ◽  
pp. 401-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Moore ◽  
Anthony E. Boardman ◽  
Aidan R. Vining
Keyword(s):  
Discount Rate ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Social Discount Rate ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Social Rate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Government Project

The decades-old literature on the correct method for choosing and estimating a social discount rate (SDR) has resulted in two, largely opposing viewpoints. This note seeks to clarify the key sources of disagreement between these two camps. One view advocates that the choice should be based chiefly on the social opportunity cost of the return to foregone private capital investment (SOC), and suggests a SDR of around 7%. The other viewpoint, expressed by the authors, argues that the choice should be based on the social rate of time preference (STP), the rate at which society is willing to trade present for future consumption, suggesting a SDR of around 3.5%. Because of the fundamentally normative basis of the SDR choice, neither approach generates testable hypotheses that would allow falsification. For government project evaluation, the choice ultimately depends on the opportunity cost of public funds, which in turn depends on how fiscal policy actually operates. The STP approach contends that governments set targets for deficits and public debt, so that a marginal government project will be tax-financed, largely crowding out current consumption. The SOC belief is that governments set revenue targets, so that any government project will be deficit-financed on the margin, which will largely crowd out private investment. The authors also argue that a SDR based on the STP approach is appropriate for: benefit-cost analysis of government regulations, self-financing government projects, and government cost-effectiveness studies.

scholarly journals More appropriate discounting: the rate of social time preference and the value of the social discount rate

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Moore ◽  
Anthony E. Boardman ◽  
Aidan R. Vining
Keyword(s):  
Discount Rate ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Shadow Price ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Social Discount Rate ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Social Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Benefit Cost

Recently, a number of authors, including Burgess and Zerbe, have recommended the use of a real social discount rate (SDR) in the range of 6–8% in benefit-cost analysis (BCA) of public projects. They derive this rate based on the social opportunity cost of capital (SOC) method. In contrast, this article argues that the correct method is to discount future impacts based on the rate of social time preference (STP). Flows in or out of private investment should be multiplied by the shadow price of capital (SPC). Using this method and employing recent United States data, we obtain an estimate of the rate of STP of 3.5% and an SPC of 2.2. We also re-estimate the SDR using the SOC method and conclude that, even if analysts continue to use this method, they should use a considerably lower rate of about 5%.

On Measuring the Social Opportunity Cost of Labour in the Presence of Tariffs and an Informal Sector (The Distinguishedl Lecture)

1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (4I) ◽  
pp. 535-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ali Khan
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
The Social ◽  
Action Project ◽  
Relevant Group ◽  
Net Benefits ◽  
The Individual

Harberger introduced his influential 1971 essay with the following words. This paper is intended not as a scientific study, nor as a review of the literature, but rather as a tract - an open letter to the profession, as it were - pleading that three basic postulates be accepted as providing a conventional framework for applied welfare economics. The postulates are: (a) The competitive demand price for a given unit measures the value of that unit to the demander; (b) The competitive supply price for a given unit measures the value of that unit to the supplier; and (c) When evaluating the net benefits or costs of a given action (project, programme, or policy), the costs and benefits accruing to each member of the relevant group (e.g., a nation) should normally be added without regard to the individual(s) to whom they accrue.

scholarly journals Discounting Disentangled

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 109-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz A. Drupp ◽  
Mark C. Freeman ◽  
Ben Groom ◽  
Frikk Nesje
Keyword(s):  
Discount Rate ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Wealth Effect ◽  
Social Discount Rate ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ramsey Rule

The economic values of investing in long-term public projects are highly sensitive to the social discount rate (SDR). We surveyed over 200 experts to disentangle disagreement on the risk-free SDR into its component parts, including pure time preference, the wealth effect, and return to capital. We show that the majority of experts do not follow the simple Ramsey Rule, a widely used theoretical discounting framework, when recommending SDRs. Despite disagreement on discounting procedures and point values, we obtain a surprising degree of consensus among experts, with more than three-quarters finding the median risk-free SDR of 2 percent acceptable. (JEL C83, D61, D82, H43, Q58)

scholarly journals Appropriate Discounting for Benefit-Cost Analysis

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
David F. Burgess ◽  
Richard O. Zerbe
Keyword(s):  
Cost Analysis ◽  
Discount Rate ◽  
Cost Of Capital ◽  
Hyperbolic Discounting ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Net Benefits ◽  
Benefit Cost

In order to be sensible about what discount rate to use one must be clear about its purpose. We suggest that its purpose is to help select those projects that will contribute more net benefits than some other discount rate. This approach, which is after all the foundation for benefit-cost analysis, helps to reconcile different suggested procedures for determining the discount rate. We suggest that the social opportunity cost of capital (SOC) is superior to other suggested approaches in its generality and its ease of use. We use the SOC to determine a range of real rates that vary between 6% and 8%. We suggest that approaches based on determination of preferences, which result in hyperbolic discounting, are less appropriate and less useful.

scholarly journals A time preference measure of the social discount rate for Iran

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arian Daneshmand ◽  
Esfandiar Jahangard ◽  
Mahnoush Abdollah-Milani
Keyword(s):  
Discount Rate ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Social Discount Rate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Preference Measure
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