The social discount rate and the cost of public funds: a search for more consistency and better practice

Michael Spackman

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Three, mutually inconsistent approaches to social discounting and the cost of public funds have persisted for fifty years. All have distinguished academic support. All present problems of concept and/or application. This leads to a global loss of cost effectiveness in public spending and regulation. This essay reviews the issues and offers a practitioner’s view on what limited but realistic potential there may be for more consistency and better practice.

Keywords: cost benefit analysis; cost of capital; cost of public funds; equity premium puzzle; public policy appraisal; social discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2023-07-25
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 25, July, 2023. ISSN: 2160-6544

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/119814/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:119814

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().