Social Discount Rates

A social time preference methodology derived from Feldstein (1965) is applied to calculate social discount rates across 167 countries and across time from 2005-2050 for a country case (Brazil). This attempt seeks to compute comparable figures from a homogeneous dataset and provides a ready-to-use framework for computing the social discount rate. Social projects are important for stimulating economic development, especially in developing economies. Because there is no consensus in the literature on how to discount social investments, the quest for a proper measure of discounting seems quite relevant. Since social discounting allows for a better allocation of resources, this is a critical issue for the public sector