The Price of Tomorrow : Exploring How We Value Future Wealth and Nature

This scientific work contributes to the economic literature on environmental discounting by assessing the discount rates for environmental goods using exogenous and endogenous methods. Discounting plays a crucial role in economic decision-making related to long-term environmental investments and policies, as in case of climate change studies or in the case of environmental restoration or environmental projects. Due to the fact that the benefits and expenses of public goods are frequently spread out across time, discount rates are important in order to calculate the present value of those future streams, most commonly when trying to determine whether to build a public good. On the other hand, at both the private and public levels of decision-making, intertemporal trade-offs are critical to a variety of choices. The market discount rate, which may be determined from financial time series, is applicable for some of these decisions. Others will have to strive to recoup individual discount rates - rates that also represent the underlying transaction costs of borrowing money that families experience.