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 first three-quarters of the time-series of US Treasury bond yields used by Newell and Pizer [37] to...

Recent research suggests that social cost-benefit analysis should be conducted with a declining discount rate. For instance Newell and Pizer [Discounting the distant future: how much do uncertain rates increase valuations? J. Environ. Econ. Manage. 46 (2003) 52-71] show that the US...

Recent research suggests that social cost-benefit analysis should be con- ducted with a declining discount rate. For instance, Newell and Pizer [23] show that the U.S. certainty-equivalent discount rate declines through time, using a simple autoregressive model of U.S. interest rates. This paper...