Discounting the Benefits of Climate Change Policies Using Uncertain Rates
Abstract
Evaluating environmental policies, such as the mitigation of greenhouse gases, frequently
requires balancing near-term mitigation costs against long-term environmental benefits.
Conventional approaches to valuing such investments hold interest rates constant,
but the authors contend that there is a real degree of uncertainty in future interest
rates. This leads to a higher valuation of future benefits relative to conventional
methods that ignore interest rate uncertainty.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/7075Collections
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Richard G. Newell
Adjunct Professor
Dr. Richard G. Newell is the President and CEO of Resources for the Future (RFF),
an independent, nonprofit research institution that improves environmental, energy,
and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement.
From 2009 to 2011, he served as the administrator of the US Energy Information Administration,
the agency responsible for official US government energy statistics and analysis.
Dr. Newell is an adjunct professor at Duke University, where he

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