If the time horizon is extremely short, the benefits of continued higher growth will be choked off and will tend to be small in nature. Even if we hold a deep concern for the distant future, perhaps there is no distant future to care about. To present this point in its starkest form, imagine that the world were set to end tomorrow. There would be little point in maximizing the growth rate, and arguably we should just throw a party and consume what we can. Even if we could boost growth in the interim hours, the payoff would be small and not very durable. The case for growth maximization therefore is stronger the longer the time horizon we consider.

Tyler Cowen, ‘Caring about the Distant Future: Why it Matters and What it Means’, University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 74, no. 1 (Winter, 2007), p. 28