Declining discount rates and the Fisher Effect: inflated past, discounted future?

Uncertain, yet persistent, real rates of return to capital underpin one argument for using a declining schedule of social discount rates. Yet persistency is only present in approximately the …rst three-quarters of the time-series of US Treasury bond yields used by Newell and Pizer [37] to estimate the term structure for the US Environmental Protection Agency. This coincides with the period in which the series re‡ects nominal, rather than real, interest rates. To overcome this disconnect the ‘Fisher E¤ect’is estimated using a cointegrated model of in‡ation and nominal interest rate data. The real interest rate series is then simulated and the certainty equivalent discount rate calculated without the need for extensive data transformations, such as smoothing out negative real interest rates. An arguably more credible schedule of declining discount rates is then estimated. International guidelines on Cost-Bene…t Analysis should be updated to re‡ect this methodological advance. JEL: Q48, C13, C53, E43