Game Theory and Interpersonal Discounting
A special issue of Games (ISSN 2073-4336).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 248
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
What is the appropriate rate to discount benefits and costs accruing to future generations who are not even born yet? Economists have long been interested in understanding how individuals sacrifice their consumption today so as to provide a benefit to future generations (Ramsey 1928), and uncovering the appropriate rate to discount government investments and public policies that yield benefits to the future (Bradford 1975). This question has normative appeal in that discounting benefits accruing to a generation who is not even alive yet implies that benefits accruing to them are somehow worth less than they are to a present-day generation, and therefore should be discounted—a result that leaves many with an uncomfortable feeling. A number of laboratory experiments have been used to draw inferences about individual discounting. To date, the majority laboratory experiments on discounting behavior provide evidence about individual or personal discounting. However, given the interpersonal nature of many public policy decisions that impose costs on one generation for the benefit of others, more work is needed to understand or justify the use of different discounting strategies for public policies that involve interpersonal and intertemporal tradeoffs. To date, there is a paucity of experimental attempts to explore whether there are differences in how people make intertemporal tradeoffs for themselves as compared to tradeoffs for others. A common finding in this literature is that individuals tend to be more patient when making decisions for others or when the decision involves the individual making a sacrifice today on behalf of another in the future.
Dr. Therese C. Grijalva
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Individual discount rate
- Interpersonal discount rate
- Social discount rate
- Time preferences
- Discounting
- Benefit–cost analysis
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