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Risk-adjusted long term social rates of discount for transportation infrastructure investment

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  • Hultkrantz, Lars

    (Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics)

  • Krüger, Niclas

    (Swedish National Road and Transport Institute)

  • Mantalos , Panagiotis

    (Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics)

Abstract

We modify a method recently suggested by Martin Weitzman (2012) for determining a risk-adjusted social discount rate (SDR) term structure consistent with both the (augmented) Ramsey rule and the consumption-based CAPM. Using this approach we estimate SDR for transportation infrastructure investments based on an analysis of correlations between transportation work, split on road and rail, and passenger travel and freight transport, and GDP in Sweden 1950-2011. We show that this can be estimated from two time-series following a random walk with drift, even if they are not co-integrated. Based on current estimates of the risk-free rate and the equity risk premium, we estimate the relevant SDR to be 5-6 percent, possibly somewhat lower for investment in railroads for passenger travel, and only slowly declining within the investment horizon. This is higher than the current rates used in, for instance, Sweden, Germany and the UK.

Suggested Citation

  • Hultkrantz, Lars & Krüger, Niclas & Mantalos , Panagiotis, 2012. "Risk-adjusted long term social rates of discount for transportation infrastructure investment," Working Papers 2012:14, Örebro University, School of Business.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2012_014
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    Cited by:

    1. Panagiotis Mantalos & Lars Hultkrantz, 2018. "Estimating ‘gamma’ for tail-hedge discount rates when project returns are cointegrated with GDP," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(37), pages 4074-4085, August.
    2. Hultkrantz, Lars & Mantalos, Panagiotis, 2018. "Hedging with trees: Tail-hedge discounting of long-term forestry returns," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 52-57.
    3. Li, Qingran & Pizer, William A., 2021. "Use of the consumption discount rate for public policy over the distant future," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    4. Serban Raicu & Mihaela Popa & Dorinela Costescu, 2022. "Uncertainties Influencing Transportation System Performances," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    5. Kathrin Goldmann, 2019. "Time-declining risk-adjusted social discount rates for transport infrastructure planning," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 17-34, February.
    6. Andersson, Henrik & Hultkrantz, Lars & Lindberg, Gunnar & Nilsson, Jan-Eric, 2017. "The role of economic analysis for investment priorities in Sweden’s transport sector," Working papers in Transport Economics 2017:12, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI), revised 23 May 2018.
    7. Asplund, Disa, 2022. "The welfare-maximizing discount rate in a small open economy," Working Papers 2022:2, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ramsey rule; CAPM; cost-benefit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • L91 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Transportation: General

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