Showing 1 - 10 of 35
Climate policy is complicated by the considerable compounded uncertainties over the costs and benefits of abatement. We don't even know the probability distributions for future temperatures and impacts, making cost-benefit analysis based on expected values challenging to say the least. There are...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013138396
This article studies how liability for environmentally harmful discharges affects the incentives of firms to engage in cleanup and invest in precautions, as well as the incentives of consumers to purchase the goods whose production leads to discharges. Our main conclusion is that making firms...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013124354
I examine the risk/return tradeoff for environmental investments, and its implications for policy choice. Consider a policy to reduce carbon emissions. To what extent does the value of such a policy depend on the expected future damages from global warming versus uncertainty over those damages,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013103046
Environmental economics has traditionally fallen in the domain of microeconomics, but recently approaches from macroeconomics have been applied to studying environmental policy. We focus on two macroeconomic tools and their application to environmental economics. First, real business cycle...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013064589
I examine Ronald Coase's criticism of standard regulatory and tax policies to address environmental externalities. I elaborate some of Coase's key points and discuss opportunities for Coasean exchange as an alternative mitigation approach. Regulation, tax, and Coasean exchange, such as through...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013000533
Environmental quality in many developing countries is poor and generates substantial health and productivity costs. However, existing measures of willingness to pay for environmental quality improvements indicate low valuations by affected households. This paper argues that this seeming paradox...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013076183
In a world of certainty, the design of environmental policy is relatively straightforward, and boils down to maximizing the present value of the flow of social benefits minus costs. But the real world is one of considerable uncertainty -- over the physical and ecological impact of pollution,...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012778137
Climate change management is a global challenge that requires social science as much as it requires natural science. We provide a brief introduction to the physical science of climate change, written to provide essential background for economists and other social scientists. We also highlight...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012908829
What have we learned from the outpouring of literature as a result of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change? A lot. We have explored the model space and the parameter space much more thoroughly, though there are still unexplored regions. While there are aspects of the Stern...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012759392
Efficient responses to climate change require accurate estimates of both aggregate damages and where and to whom they occur. While specific case studies and simulations have suggested that climate change disproportionately affects the poor, large-scale direct evidence of the magnitude and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012870073