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Discounting across generations: necessary, not suspect.

R B Belzer1

  • 1Center for the Study of American Business, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. belzer@csab.wustl.edu

Risk Analysis : an Official Publication of the Society for Risk Analysis
|April 21, 2001
PubMed
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Future discounting, essential for economic and policy decisions, faces ethical challenges. This article argues that discounting is practically unavoidable and ethically justifiable for long-term planning.

Area of Science:

  • Environmental Economics
  • Ethics
  • Decision Theory

Background:

  • Ethical objections to discounting future effects are recurrent, particularly concerning long-term issues like nuclear waste and climate change.
  • These objections question the fairness of devaluing future outcomes and impacts on future generations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To rebut ethical objections to future discounting on practical, ethical, and analytic grounds.
  • To demonstrate the ubiquity and inevitability of discounting in both public policy and market behavior.

Main Methods:

  • The study employs a critical analysis of ethical arguments against discounting.
  • It examines the practical implications of prohibiting discounting in public and market spheres.
  • The analysis explores the concept of irreversibility in decision-making and intergenerational equity.

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Main Results:

  • Discounting for future effects is a ubiquitous practice that cannot be practically prevented.
  • Market values will inherently reflect discounted future effects, irrespective of public policy.
  • There is no ethical or analytic basis for establishing an arbitrary time horizon to reject discounting.
  • Opponents' arguments often overstate irreversibility and underestimate future adaptive capacities.

Conclusions:

  • Future discounting is practically unavoidable and ethically defensible.
  • Ethical objections lack a sound basis, as arbitrary time horizons are unfounded.
  • Intergenerational transfers, including burdens, are a characteristic of current societal practices and are widely accepted.