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15 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 957 (2017)
Descriptive versus Prescriptive Discounting in Climate Change Policy Analysis

handle is hein.journals/geojlap15 and id is 972 raw text is: Descriptive Versus Prescriptive Discounting in Climate Change Policy Analysis J. PAUL KELLEHER* ABSTRACT In cost-benefit analyses of climate change policy, a small change in the value of a single technical parameter-the so-called social discount rate-can make the difference between recommending a go-slow approach to mitigating green- house gas emissions and recommending immediate and costly actions to curb them. This paper aims to distinguish between five different approaches to social discount rates, to criticize two of these, and to explain how the other three are to some degree mutually compatible. Along the way, I hope to shed some new and useful light on a longstanding debate in climate change economics between so-called descriptivists and prescriptivists about social discounting. My ulti- mate goal is to offer a sketch of the conceptual landscape that makes visible some important facets of the debate that very often go unacknowledged. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................... 958 I. PRESCRIPTIVISM vs. DESCRIPTIVISM ........................ 959 II. OPPORTUNITY COST DESCRIPTIVISM ........................ 962 III. GOULDER-WILLIAMs DESCRIPTIVISM ....................... 964 IV. Two TYPES OF PRESCRIPTIVISM, AND ONE MORE TYPE OF DESCRIPTIVISM ...................................... 974 CONCLUSION ............................................ 977 * Associate Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison. For very helpful comments and discussion, I thank audience members at the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics conference on Ethics and What Is Not Seen, and John Broome, David Faraci, Kian Mintz-Woo, and Lauren Hartzell Nichols. Any errors of interpretation or analysis are mine alone. I also gratefully acknowledge the kind permission of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reproduce and use Figure 2, in the text. D 2017, J. Paul Kelleher. 957

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