Discounting in long-term public projects

The goal of this thesis is to show, whether is feasibility study of canal Dunaj – Odra – Labe sensitive to changes in discount rate and to map a discussion on social discount rate in policies and projects which are focused on climate change issues, which has a great impact on cost-benefit analysis in other areas of economics of public sector, especially in long-term public projects. I will in this thesis prove a hypothesis about sensitivity of feasibility study of canal Dunaj – Odra – Labe, which was planned long term public project located on territory of Czech Republic and which was by the beginning of the year 2023 shut down. The main contribution of this thesis is to bring awareness to the severity of the issue and analysis of the discussion, which will then allow me to distil the main arguments and points of said discussion. Theoretical part is mainly a comparison of publications of prominent economists, such as Nicholas Stern, William Nordhaus, or Partha Dasgupta, all of which have expressed their opinions on the matter. Theoretical part is furthermore about description of procedures and approaches, which can then be used in practical part. Practical part involves usage of said procedures in search of data needed for calculations of scenarios of social discount rate, which are done according to approaches from theoretical part. These scenarios help me to demonstrate sensitivity of cost-benefit analysis used in feasibility study of canal Dunaj – Odra – Labe to changes in discount rate.