The “Social Rate of Discount” and the Political Economy of the Future in Postwar America
追溯了社会折现率在1960年代美国如何因水资源基础设施争论而成为社会科学和政治关注焦点，并分析其如何通过兰德公司、哈佛水项目、肯尼迪白宫和参议员普罗克斯迈尔等节点获得影响力。
Abstract Recent debates about climate change policy have illuminated the quiet power of a largely obscure economic number: the discount rate used in government cost-benefit analyses. Plugged into a vast array of administrative calculations, the discount rate shapes how governments weigh present versus future across numerous domains. How did this number acquire so much power? This article reconstructs how the social rate of discount first emerged as an object of social-scientific and political concern in the 1960s United States, propelled by debates about water infrastructure. That number surged into significance because it attracted the intellectual, ideological, and political interests of a disparate network of actors. This article examines four key nodes: the defense thinktank RAND, the Harvard Water Program, the Kennedy White House, and Senator William Proxmire. The social rate of discount offers a vivid case for investigating how “economic policy devices” (Hirschman and Berman 2014) take hold at specific political moments.