This paper sets out the alternative approaches to the public sector discount rate and explains the assumptions involved. There are two main ways of thinking about the discount rate. First, the social opportunity cost of capital approach (SOC) defines the discount rate as the rate of return that...

I discuss a dynamic version of the Zodrow-Miezskowski model, where world capital supply is not fixed. The time horizon of the welfare maximizing government is assumed to be infinite whereas the household sector is designed according to the two-period overlapping-generations model. Thus social...