Narrow search
Showing 1 - 10 of 401
Cover Image
The Incidence of Civil War: Theory and Evidence
Besley, Timothy; Persson, Torsten - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2008
This paper studies the incidence of civil war over time. We put forward a canonical model of civil war, which relates the incidence of conflict to circumstances, institutions and features of the underlying economy and polity. We use this model to derive testable predictions and to interpret the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005718572
Cover Image
Climate Change and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century
Olken, Benjamin; Dell, Melissa; Jones, Benjamin F. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2008
This paper uses annual variation in temperature and precipitation over the past 50 years to examine the impact of climatic changes on economic activity throughout the world. We find three primary results. First, higher temperatures substantially reduce economic growth in poor countries but have...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005720168
Cover Image
The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence From 6,700 Cyclones
Hsiang, Solomon M.; Jina, Amir S. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2014
pre-disaster trend, and do not recover within twenty years. Both rich and poor countries exhibit this response, with … suppression of annual growth rates spread across the fifteen years following disaster, generating large and significant cumulative … continuous exposure to disaster. Linking these results to projections of future cyclone activity, we estimate that under …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010821718
Cover Image
Climatic Fluctuations and the Diffusion of Agriculture
Ashraf, Quamrul; Michalopoulos, Stelios - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2013
This research examines the climatic origins of the diffusion of Neolithic agriculture across countries and archaeological sites. The theory suggests that a foraging society s history of climatic shocks shaped the timing of its adoption of farming. Specifically, as long as climatic disturbances...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010821960
Cover Image
Tipping Points and Ambiguity in the Economics of Climate Change
Lemoine, Derek M.; Traeger, Christian P. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012
We model welfare-maximizing policy in an infinite-horizon setting when the probability of a tipping point, the welfare change due to a tipping point, and knowledge about a tipping point's trigger all depend on the policy path. Analytic results demonstrate how optimal policy depends on the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010969374
Cover Image
Continuous-Time Methods for Integrated Assessment Models
Judd, Kenneth L.; Lontzek, Thomas S.; Cai, Yongyang - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2012
Continuous time is a superior representation of both the economic and climate systems that Integrated Assessment Models (IAM) aim to study. Moreover, continuous-time representations are simple to express. Continuous-time models are usually solved by discretizing time, but the quality of a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010950988
Cover Image
Optimal Carbon Abatement in a Stochastic Equilibrium Model with Climate Change
Hambel, Christoph; Kraft, Holger; Schwartz, Eduardo - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2015
opens the risk that temperatures might explode and economic growth decreases significantly. …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011213650
Cover Image
The Use and Misuse of Models for Climate Policy
Pindyck, Robert S. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2015
In recent articles, I have argued that integrated assessment models (IAMs) have flaws that make them close to useless as tools for policy analysis. IAM-based analyses of climate policy create a perception of knowledge and precision that is illusory, and can fool policy-makers into thinking that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011262915
Cover Image
Indexed Regulation
Newell, Richard; Pizer, William A. - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2008
Seminal work by Weitzman (1974) revealed prices are preferred to quantities when marginal benefits are relatively flat compared to marginal costs. We extend this comparison to indexed policies, where quantities are proportional to an index, such as output. We find that policy preferences hinge...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005084601
Cover Image
Private Investment and Government Protection
Luttmer, Erzo F.P.; Zeckhauser, Richard; Kousky, Carolyn - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - 2006
Hurricane Katrina did massive damage because New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were not appropriately protected. Wherever natural disasters threaten, the government -- in its traditional role as public goods provider -- must decide what level of protection to provide to an area. It does so by...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005084856