There is widespread concern that climate policy is moving too slowly and that decarbonization of economic development is coming too late for effective climate protection. We analyze three different effects that emerge endogenously during decarbonization and amplify current policies: growing...

The 2020 climate and energy package adopted in 2009 sets three key targets for EU Member States: 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions (from 1990 levels); to ensure 20% of renewables in final energy consumption and to achieve 20% improvement in energy efficiency from 2005 levels. The paper...

Are coastal cities adjusting to rising sea levels? This paper argues that large-scale events have the potential to ignite the process. We examine the effects of hurricane Sandy on the New York City housing market. We assemble a large plot-level dataset with rich geographic data on housing sales...

The optimal investment to mitigate climate change crucially depends on the discount rate used to evaluate the investment’s uncertain future benefits. The appropriate discount rate is a function of the horizon over which these benefits accrue and the riskiness of the investment. In this paper,...

We examine Singapore's fairly homogeneous private-housing market and show that new apartments on historical multi-century leases trade at a non-zero discount relative to property owned in perpetuity. Descriptive regressions indicate that new apartments with 825 to 986 years of tenure remaining...

We provide direct estimates of how agents trade off immediate costs and uncertain future benefits that occur in the very long run, 100 or more years away. We exploit a unique feature of housing markets in the U.K. and Singapore, where residential property ownership takes the form of either...

The estimation of future sea level rise (SLR) is a major concern for cities near coastlines and river systems. Despite this, current modelling underestimates the future risks of SLR to property. Direct risks posed to property include inundation, loss of physical property and associated economic...

We study whether floods can affect financial stability through a credit risk channel. Our focus is on the Netherlands, a country situated partly below sea level, where insurance policies exclude property damages caused by some types of floods. Using geocoded data for close to EUR 650 billion in...