eprintid: 4284 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 351 dir: disk0/00/00/42/84 datestamp: 2016-01-15 02:05:15 lastmod: 2021-08-27 17:35:56 status_changed: 2016-01-15 02:05:15 type: article metadata_visibility: show item_issues_count: 1 creators_name: Schelling, T.C. creators_id: 1615 title: Integenerational discounting ispublished: pub internal_subjects: iis_ecn internal_subjects: iis_env divisions: prog_ins keywords: Global warming; Intergenerational equity; Discounting abstract: 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’. date: 1995 date_type: published publisher: Elsevier id_number: 10.1016/0301-4215(95)90164-3 iiasapubid: XJ-95-049 iiasa_bibref: Energy Policy; 23(4/5):395-401 [1995] creators_browse_id: 1555 full_text_status: none publication: Energy Policy volume: 23 number: 4 pagerange: 395-401 refereed: TRUE issn: 0301-4215 coversheets_dirty: FALSE fp7_type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article citation: Schelling, T.C. (1995). Integenerational discounting. Energy Policy 23 (4) 395-401. 10.1016/0301-4215(95)90164-3 .