Sozou, Peter D.. (2009) Individual and social discounting in a viscous population. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol.276 (No.1669). pp. 2955-2962. ISSN 0962-8452

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Abstract

Social discounting in economics involves applying a diminishing weight to community-wide benefits or costs into the future. It impacts on public policy decisions involving future positive or negative effects, but there is no consensus on the correct basis for determining the social discount rate. This study presents an evolutionary biological framework for social discounting. How an organism should value future benefits to its local community is governed by the extent to which members of the community in the future are likely to be its kin. Trade-offs between immediate and delayed benefits to an individual or to its community are analysed for a modelled patch-structured iteroparous population with limited dispersal. It is shown that the social discount rate is generally lower than the individual (private) discount rate. The difference in the two rates is most pronounced, in ratio terms, when the dispersal level is low and the hazard rate for patch destruction is much smaller than the individual mortality rate. When decisions involve enforced collective action rather than individuals acting independently, social investment increases but the social discount rate remains the same.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Divisions:	Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School > Clinical Sciences Research Institute (CSRI) Faculty of Medicine > Warwick Medical School
Journal or Publication Title:	Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher:	The Royal Society Publishing
ISSN:	0962-8452
Date:	22 August 2009
Volume:	Vol.276
Number:	No.1669
Number of Pages:	8
Page Range:	pp. 2955-2962
Identification Number:	10.1098/rspb.2009.0401
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	London School of Economics
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/27635

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