RT Journal Article
SR 00
ID 10.1016/0301-4215(95)90164-3
A1 Schelling, T.C.
T1 Integenerational discounting
JF Energy Policy
YR 1995
FD 1995
VO 23
IS 4
SP 395
OP 401
K1 Global warming; Intergenerational equity; Discounting
AB A ‘discount rate’ for the consumption of future generations from current investments for their benefit is typically composed of two parts: ‘time preference’ and an allowance for the lower marginal utility of consumption due to higher average levels of consumption in the future. Time preference would be involved if one were postponing one's own consumption; it has little or nothing to do with income redistribution, which is what greenhouse abatement is about. A lower marginal utility of consumption is an anomaly in income redistribution: we rarely deliberately transfer consumption from the less to the more well-to-do. Time may serve as a kind of measure of distance; we may prefer beneficiaries who are closer in time, in geographical distance, in culture, surely in kinship. Perhaps to keep our thinking straight we should use a term like ‘depreciation’, rather than ‘discounting’.
PB Elsevier
SN 0301-4215
LK https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/4284/