This paper provides a critical review of the literature on choosing social discount rates (SDRs) for public cost-benefit analysis. We discuss two dominant approaches, the first based on market prices, and the second based on intertemporal ethics. While both methods have attractive features,...

I consider the effect of empathy towards others on the internalization of interpersonal externalities and on private contributions to the provision of public goods. I show that if preferences are empathetic in the sense of depending on the well-being of others, then in an extreme case external...

I consider the effect of caring, empathy, altruism or positive reciprocity towards others - which I collectively call positive preference interdependence (PPI) - on the internalization of interpersonal externalities and on the level of private contributions to the provision of public goods. I...

Social distancing via shelter-in-place strategies, and wearing masks, have emerged as the most effective non-pharmaceutical ways of combatting COVID-19. In the United States, choices about these policies are made by individual states. We develop a game-theoretic model and then test it...

Blended finance---the use of public and philanthropic funding to crowd in private capital---is a potential way to finance a more sustainable world. While blended finance holds the promise of being catalytic in mobilizing vast amounts of private capital, little is known about this practice. In...

The use of private capital to finance biodiversity conservation and restoration is a new practice in sustainable finance. This study sheds light on this new practice. First, we provide a conceptual framework that lays out how biodiversity can be financed by i) pure private capital and ii)...

Valuing deaths caused by climate change in Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) is complex and controversial, having caused disagreement and acrimony in past high-profile settings. Furthermore, it is of first order consequence to the value of the social cost of carbon (SCC). Despite this, the underlying...

I provide a rigorous framework for accounting for corporate greenhouse gas emissions, based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. I show that only Scope 1 emissions are of interest from a national policy perspective: that emissions in Scopes 2 and 3 are duplicative, and that downstream Scope 3...