Who dares to discount future lives born into a ravaged climate?

By Markus Mannheim
Updated April 23 2018 - 11:14pm, first published May 3 2015 - 8:43am

If a government was to build a wondrous, but expensive, high-speed railway that was to last 100 years, how should it pay for it? It would be unfair to impose the entire cost on today's taxpayers, given future generations would enjoy most of the benefits. Future train passengers are also likely to be wealthier, in real terms, than today's taxpayers, so we might expect them to pay a greater-than-equal share of the cost. For infrastructure projects like this, economists have a straightforward way of "discounting" the railway's future benefits (for example, by comparing them with the benefits of investing in something else) to decide whether the upfront costs are worthwhile.

Subscribe now for unlimited access.

$0/

(min cost $0)

or signup to continue reading

See subscription options

Get the latest Canberra news in your inbox

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.

We care about the protection of your data. Read our Privacy Policy.