Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T06:25:21.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Comment on Burgess and Zerbe’s “Appropriate Discounting for Benefit-Cost Analysis”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2015

Szabolcs Szekeres*
Affiliation:
IID Kft., Budapest
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This is a comment on a paper by David F. Burgess and Richard O. Zerbe. It derives a different set of conclusions than the cited authors do from the customary premises underlying benefit-cost analysis. It concludes that capital should be shadow priced, and that the appropriate discount rate to use in benefit-cost analysis is the interest rate of the capital market to which the public sector has access. It proposes that a plausible source of the great divergence in approaches to discounting stems from different answers being given to the question of whether present day consumption has a future consumption opportunity cost.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis 2011

References

Becker, Gary S., Murphy, Kevin M., and Topel, Robert H.. (2010) “On the Economics of Climate Policy,” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 10: Iss. 2 (Symposium), Article 19.Google Scholar
Brent, Robert J. (2006). Applied Cost-benefit Analysis, Second Edition. 2006, Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Burgess, David F. and Zerbe, Richard O. (2011) “Appropriate Discounting for Benefit-Cost Analysis,” Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis: Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drèze, Jean and Stern, Nicholas. (1990): Policy Reform, Shadow Prices, and Market Prices. Journal of Public Economics 42, 1990: 1-45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szekeres, Szabolcs. (2011) “Discounting in Cost-Benefit Analysis.” Society and Economy in Central and Eastern Europe, 33: 2, pp. 361385.Google Scholar