Inter-Generational Equity and the Rate of Discount in Long-Term Social Investment

TLDR: The importance of the correct choice of discount rate for social (or indeed individual) investments hardly needs elaboration as discussed by the authors, and the discount rate is, at least in part, an expression of concerns about equity between the present and future generations and among future generations.

Abstract: The importance of the correct choice of discount rate for social (or indeed individual) investments hardly needs elaboration. In the social context, the discount rate is, at least in part, an expression of concerns about equity between the present and future generations and among future generations. I say, in part, because it also expresses both an expectation of the rates of return available to future generations in alternative uses of capital and an expectation of the growth of income of the representative individual.