IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2021.03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Welfare Cost of Ignoring the Beta

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Gollier

    (Toulouse School of Economics, University of Toulouse-Capitole)

Abstract

Because of risk aversion, any sensible investment valuation system should value less projects that contribute more to the aggregate risk, i.e., that have a larger income elasticity of net benefits. In theory, this is done by adjusting discount rates to consumption betas. But in reality, for various reasons (Arrow-Lind and WACC fallacies, market failures), most public and private institutions and people use a discount rate that is rather insensitive to the risk profile of their investment projects. I show in this paper that the economic consequences of the implied misallocation of capital are dire. To do this, I calibrate a Lucas model in which the investment opportunity set contains a myriad of projects with different expected returns and risk profiles. The welfare loss of using a single discount rate is equivalent to a permanent reduction in consumption that lies somewhere between 15% and 45%, depending upon which familiar discounting system is used. Economists should devote more energy to support a reform of public discounting systems in favor of what has been advocated by the normative interpretation of modern asset pricing theories over the last four decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Gollier, 2021. "The Welfare Cost of Ignoring the Beta," Working Papers 2021.03, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2021.03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2021-003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randolph B. Cohen & Christopher Polk & Tuomo Vuolteenaho, 2009. "The Price Is (Almost) Right," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(6), pages 2739-2782, December.
    2. Philipp Krüger & Augustin Landier & David Thesmar, 2015. "The WACC Fallacy: The Real Effects of Using a Unique Discount Rate," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(3), pages 1253-1285, June.
    3. Larry G. Epstein & Emmanuel Farhi & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2014. "How Much Would You Pay to Resolve Long-Run Risk?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2680-2697, September.
    4. Agnar Sandmo, 1974. "Discount Rates for Public Investment Under Uncertainty," International Economic Association Series, in: Jacques H. Drèze (ed.), Allocation under Uncertainty: Equilibrium and Optimality, chapter 11, pages 192-210, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Luc Baumstark & Christian Gollier, 2014. "The relevance and the limits of the Arrow-Lind Theorem," Post-Print halshs-00958510, HAL.
    6. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    8. Cass R. Sunstein, 2014. "On Not Revisiting Official Discount Rates: Institutional Inertia and the Social Cost of Carbon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 547-551, May.
    9. Ian Martin, 2013. "The Lucas Orchard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(1), pages 55-111, January.
    10. Breeden, Douglas T., 1979. "An intertemporal asset pricing model with stochastic consumption and investment opportunities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 265-296, September.
    11. Kenneth J. Arrow & Robert C. Lind, 1974. "Uncertainty and the Evaluation of Public Investment Decisions," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 3, pages 54-75, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Dietz, Simon & Gollier, Christian & Kessler, Louise, 2018. "The climate beta," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 258-274.
    13. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    14. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    15. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1983. "Stochastic Consumption, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Asset Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 249-265, April.
    16. Stern,Nicholas, 2007. "The Economics of Climate Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700801, September.
    17. Martin L. Weitzman, 2001. "Gamma Discounting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 260-271, March.
    18. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    19. Partha Dasgupta, 2008. "Discounting climate change," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 141-169, December.
    20. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    21. Arrow, K. & Cropper, M. & Gollier, C. & Groom, B. & Heal, G. & Newell, R. & Nordhaus, W. & Pindyck, R. & Pizer, W. & Portney, P. & Sterner, T. & Tol, R. S. J. & Weitzman, Martin L., 2013. "Determining Benefits and Costs for Future Generations," Scholarly Articles 12841963, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    22. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    23. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Arrow Kenneth J, 2007. "Global Climate Change: A Challenge to Policy," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 1-5, June.
    25. William D. Nordhaus, 2007. "A Review of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 686-702, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sophie Zhou & Frederick van der Ploeg & Rick van der Ploeg, 2023. "Structural Change and the Climate Risk Premium during the Green Transition," CESifo Working Paper Series 10840, CESifo.
    2. Spackman, Michael, 2021. "Social discounting and the equity premium," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111488, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Gollier, Christian & van der Ploeg, Frederick & Zheng, Jiakun, 2023. "The discounting premium puzzle: Survey evidence from professional economists," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cherbonnier, Frédéric & Gollier, Christian, 2018. "Risk-adjusted social discount rates," TSE Working Papers 18-972, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2020.
    2. Rick van der Ploeg, 2020. "Discounting and Climate Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 8441, CESifo.
    3. Gollier, Christian, 2016. "Evaluation of long-dated assets: The role of parameter uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 66-83.
    4. Lars Hultkrantz, 2021. "Discounting in economic evaluation of healthcare interventions: what about the risk term?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 22(3), pages 357-363, April.
    5. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    6. Stan Olijslagers & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2019. "Discounting the Future: on Climate Change, Ambiguity Aversion and Epstein-Zin Preferences," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-030/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    7. Gollier, Christian & van der Ploeg, Frederick & Zheng, Jiakun, 2023. "The discounting premium puzzle: Survey evidence from professional economists," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Hardouvelis, Gikas A. & Kim, Dongcheol & Wizman, Thierry A., 1996. "Asset pricing models with and without consumption data: An empirical evaluation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 267-301, September.
    9. Gollier, Christian, 2018. "The cost-efficiency carbon pricing puzzle," TSE Working Papers 18-952, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised May 2024.
    10. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Equity Puzzles," MPRA Paper 68729, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Frédéric Cherbonnier & Christian Gollier, 2022. "Risk-adjusted Social Discount Rates," Post-Print hal-04012977, HAL.
    12. Anisha Ghosh & Christian Julliard & Alex P. Taylor, 2017. "What Is the Consumption-CAPM Missing? An Information-Theoretic Framework for the Analysis of Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(2), pages 442-504.
    13. Sabine Elmiger, 2019. "CAPM-anomalies: quantitative puzzles," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(3), pages 643-667, October.
    14. Kent D. Daniel & Robert B. Litterman & Gernot Wagner, 2016. "Applying Asset Pricing Theory to Calibrate the Price of Climate Risk," NBER Working Papers 22795, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Georges Dionne & Jingyuan Li & Cedric Okou, 2012. "An Extension of the Consumption-based CAPM Model," Cahiers de recherche 1214, CIRPEE.
    16. Christian Gollier, 2012. "Evaluation of Long-Dated Investments under Uncertain Growth Trend, Volatility and Catastrophes," CESifo Working Paper Series 4052, CESifo.
    17. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2016. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: A Unified Explanation for Asset-Return Puzzles," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 229607, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    18. Sing, Tien Foo & Zou, Yiheng, 2022. "Mortgage payments and equity premium puzzle," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 376-388.
    19. Aase, Knut K., 2014. "Recursive utility and jump-diffusions," Discussion Papers 2014/9, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    20. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discounting; Investment Theory; Asset Pricing; Carbon Pricing; Arrow-Lind Theorem; WACC Fallacy; Rare Disasters; Capital Budgeting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2021.03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.