The question of how to discount the distant future has long been at the core of climate economics. It has also divided economists. Some argue for prescriptivist approaches to discounting, often calling for social discount rates of as low as 1% per year. Others argue strongly for descriptivist...

The Ramsey equation ties the utility discount rate and the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption together with per capita consumption growth rates to calculate consumption discount rates. For many applications, per capita consumption growth rates can be approximated with per capita...

The question of how to discount the distant future has long been at the core of climate economics. It has also divided economists. Some argue for prescriptivist approaches to discounting, often calling for social discount rates of as low as 1% per year. Others argue strongly for descriptivist...