With interest rates potentially on a downward trajectory, there's good reason (as we highlighted last week) to believe that the bumper yields on offer from government bonds might not be here for too long. But a competing theory suggests that we could instead return to an 'old normal', where the yield on the likes of the 10-year UK government bond stays somewhere between 4 and 5 per cent for a longer period.
Why should anyone but the most ardent economist care? For one, it would mean that a decent income would still be available to investors from the bond market (albeit capital gains would be scarce), and that less 'safe' assets will have to offer better yields, and better total returns, to get their attention.
It would also have an effect on how certain asset classes fare in future. And so, we turn back to the infrastructure investment trusts, which remain popular with investors even after a difficult period and currently trade on some attractive share price discounts and dividend yields.