Earlier benefits and lasting improvements

Vary the horizon and discount rate to compare a five-year advance with a lasting 10% increase in the ceiling.

A discovery can bring benefits forward. An institutional change might alter the quality or distribution of benefits for much longer. Both could matter; their comparison depends on what persists and on the alternatives.

The illustrative curve below compares a five-year advance with a 10% higher ceiling. Change the time horizon and discount rate. These are arbitrary value-years—not a forecast, a calibrated social-welfare model, or a claim that one category of work always wins.

Earlier benefits can save lives, change survival odds or enable later improvements. A supposed ceiling change may wash out. Costs, distribution and these interactions are omitted here.

What would have to persist for your proposed intervention to improve the long-run trajectory?

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