Uncertain Outcomes and Climate Change Policy / Robert S. Pindyck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pindyck, Robert S.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15259.

NBER working paper series no. w15259

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

Focusing on tail effects, I incorporate distributions for temperature change and its economic impact in an analysis of climate change policy. I estimate the fraction of consumption w*(tau) that society would be willing to sacrifice to ensure that any increase in temperature at a future point is limited to tau. Using information on the distributions for temperature change and economic impact from studies assembled by the IPCC and from "integrated assessment models" (IAMs), I fit displaced gamma distributions for these variables. Unlike existing IAMs, I model economic impact as a relationship between temperature change and the growth rate of GDP as opposed to its level, so that warming has a permanent impact on future GDP. The fitted distributions for temperature change and economic impact generally yield values of w*(tau) below 2%, even for small values of tau, unless one assumes extreme parameter values and/or substantial shifts in the temperature distribution. These results are consistent with moderate abatement policies.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2009.