Climate Change and Long-Run Discount Rates: Evidence from Real Estate

83 Pages Posted: 1 Dec 2015

See all articles by Stefano Giglio

Stefano Giglio

Yale School of Management; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Matteo Maggiori

Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Johannes Stroebel

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Andreas Weber

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: November 2015

Abstract

The optimal investment to mitigate climate change crucially depends on the discount rate used to evaluate the investment’s uncertain future benefits. The appropriate discount rate is a function of the horizon over which these benefits accrue and the riskiness of the investment. In this paper, we estimate the term structure of discount rates for an important risky asset class, real estate, up to the very long horizons relevant for investments in climate change abatement. We show that this term structure is steeply downward-sloping, reaching 2.6% at horizons beyond 100 years. We explore the implications of these new data within both a general asset pricing framework that decomposes risks and returns by horizon and a structural model calibrated to match a variety of asset classes. Our analysis demonstrates that applying average rates of return that are observed for traded assets to investments in climate change abatement is misleading. We also show that the discount rates for investments in climate change abatement that reduce aggregate risk, as in disaster-risk models, are bounded above by our estimated term structure for risky housing, and should be below 2.6% for long-run benefits. This upper bound rules out many discount rates suggested in the literature and used by policymakers. Our framework also distinguishes between the various mechanisms the environmental literature has proposed for generating downward-sloping discount rates.

Keywords: asset pricing, climate change, cost-benefit analysis, declining discount rates, environmental economics, real estate

JEL Classification: G11, G12, R30

Suggested Citation

Giglio, Stefano and Maggiori, Matteo and Stroebel, Johannes and Weber, Andreas, Climate Change and Long-Run Discount Rates: Evidence from Real Estate (November 2015). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP10958, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2697591

Stefano Giglio (Contact Author)

Yale School of Management ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

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Matteo Maggiori

Harvard University ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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Johannes Stroebel

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

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Suite 9-160
New York, NY NY 10012
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Andreas Weber

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

Suite 9-160
New York, NY
United States

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