Discounting Inside the Washington D.C. Beltway
探讨贴现率选择如何显著影响政策决策，包括桥梁建设、电力销售私有化、幼儿教育投入及社保改革等，并分析华盛顿政策制定者实际使用的多种贴现率及其产生的偏差。
This article focuses on how the choice of discount rate can dramatically affect policy choices. These policies include whether to build a bridge, whether to privatize a Power Marketing Administration which sells electricity generated by government-owned facilities such as dams, how much money should be spent on early-childhood education, or options for reforming Social Security. The ongoing challenge is to discount future costs or benefits in a way that matches the project's level of riskiness. We begin by discussing the underlying issues in choosing an appropriate discount rate. We then discuss the variety of different discount rates that are actually used by various Washington policymakers and the biases they often generate.