This paper presents a multiregion modeling approach focussing on capital mobility and spillovers. The approach is based on a Ramsey type economic growth model, on the one hand, and on the balance of payment concept, on the other hand. The way to find an equilibrium solution is novel. It differs...

The impacts of the availability of low-carbon technologies on the regional distribution of mitigation costs are analyzed in a global multi-regional integrated assessment model. Three effects on regional consumption losses are distinguished: domestic measures, trade of fossil energy carriers and...

A major obstacle for the transformation to a low-carbon economy is the risk of a carbon lock-in: fossil fuel-based ('dirty') technologies dominate the market although their carbon-free ('clean') alternatives are dynamically more efficient. We study the interaction of learning-by-doing spillovers...

In these interviews on the key topics under discussion at Rio+20, Derek Eaton, co-author of UNEP's Green Economy Report, presents an overview of the Green Economy principles, whilst Professor Ottmar Edenhoffer, co-chair of IPCC WGIII, warns that any step towards sustainability must consider...

Auf dem Weltklimagipfel in Kopenhagen im Dezember 2009 wird ein globales Klimaabkommen verhandelt. Können dort Strukturen geschaffen werden, die einen effizienten und kostengünstigen Klimaschutz ermöglichen? Entscheidend sei es, nach Meinung von Hubertus Bardt, Institut der deutschen...

We study the impact of heterogeneous saving behavior on the distributional effects of public investment. A capital tax is levied to finance productive public capital in an economy with two types of households: high income households who save dynastically and middle income households who save for...

Financing productive public capital through distortionary taxes typically creates a trade-off: the optimal investment is determined as a compromise between efficiency-enhancing public investment and perturbing market efficiency, but is never socially optimal. In contrast, such a trade-off can...

Climate change is still not widely recognized as a burning issue. Despite illusions, climate skepticism is not dead yet but only evolving, shaped in different forms, each with different underlying reasons and meanings. Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, identifies five types...