We examine the value of sporting success to the German population at two major sport events in 2012, the European Championships in football and the London Olympic Games. Using the contingent valuation method (CVM), this study is the first to compare the value of sporting success between two...

There is much disagreement about the discount rate. The prescriptive approach derives the discount rate from utility functions, growth models and ethical considerations. The descriptive approach stresses the opportunity cost of capital, but struggles to define which market rates to average. Both...

As changes in climate-related stocks have consequences spanning over centuries or possibly millennia to the future, to reconcile the discounting of such far-distant impacts and realism of the shorter-term decisions, hyperbolic time-preferences are considered in a climate-economy model. The...

Nearly all discussions about the appropriate consumption discount rate for climate-change policy evaluation assume that a single discount rate concept applies. We argue that two distinct concepts and associated rates apply. We distinguish a social-welfare-equivalent discount rate appropriate for...

As the most important driver of long-term project evaluation, from climate change policy to infrastructure investments, the social discount rate (SDR) has been subject to heated debate among economists. To uncover the extent and sources of disagreement, we report the results of a survey of over...

This empirical study investigates whether and how much individuals are willing to pay for hosting Olympic Games in Germany. Moreover, it is examined for the first time what individuals are willing to accept to host Olympic Games in their own country if they do not like that. Furthermore, this...

In Stated Preference studies for the appraisal of environmental projects in poor countries or regions it often turns out that the stated willingness to pay of people for environmental improvements, which is used as measure of individual welfare changes, is very low. This is often interpreted as...

In "How should the distant future be discounted when discount rates are uncertain?" (2010) Gollier and Weitzman claimed having solved the Weitzman-Gollier puzzle, concluding from a risk-averse utility maximizing model that Weitzman discounting is qualitatively correct and that when uncertain...

The paper derives the optimal carbon tax in closed-form from an integrated assessment of climate change. The formula shows how carbon, temperature, and economic dynamics quantify the optimal mitigation effort. The model’s descriptive power is comparable to numeric models used in policy...

Through the Hartz reforms, German active labor market policy was fundamentally restructured and has since been systematically evaluated. This paper reviews the recent evaluation findings and draws some conclusions for the future setup of active labor market policies in Germany. It argues in...