Between 1950 and 2017, world average life expectancy increased from below-50 to above-70, while the fertility rate dropped from 5 to about 2.5. We develop and calibrate an analytic climate-economy model with overlapping generations to study the effect of such demographic change on capital...

Greenhouse gas policies confront the trade-off between the costs of reducing emissions and the benefits of avoided climate change. The risk of uncertain and potentially irreversible catastrophes is an important issue related to the latter, and one that has not yet been well incorporated into...

It is well-known that men and women differ in their views regarding the severity of climate change, but do they also differ in their support for climate policy and in undertaking climate action? Previous evidence on this question is inconsistent, but unique survey data from the Swedish...

This paper explores the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the low-carbon transition in OECD and G20 countries. It tracks GHG emissions and energy investments by SOEs and analyses the impact of SOEs on investments in renewable electricity. A descriptive analysis of SOEs’ role in the...

Understanding the distributional impacts of market-based climate policies is crucial to design economically efficient climate change mitigation policies that are socially acceptable and avoid adverse impacts on the poor. Empirical studies that examine the distributional impacts of carbon pricing...

There has been intense focus on the issue of how emissions allowances might be allocated under a potential federal cap-and-trade program. What fraction of the allowances should be auctioned out, as opposed to given out free? How much free allocation would be sufficient to preserve profits in...

Jurisdictions are in the process of establishing regulatory systems to control greenhouse gas emissions. Short-term and sometimes long-term emissions reduction goals are established, as California does for 2020 and 2050, but little attention has yet been focused on annual emissions targets for...

We analyze the use of patent protection as a new policy to direct technical change to clean technology. Contrary to popular belief, it is dirty (and not clean) innovations that should be excluded from patent protection to reduce emissions. In the shortrun, removing patent protection on dirty...

We propose a novel mechanism for coalitional policies in a climate coalition. In our proposed setup, national (unilateral) and federal (multinational) emission policies coexist. A joint federal institution, appointed by all members, sets a joint emission policy for its members and must attain...