Uncertain Outcomes and Climate Change Policy

Robert S. Pindyck

NBER Working Paper No. 15259
Issued in August 2009
NBER Program(s):   EEE   IO   PE

Focusing on tail effects, I incorporate distributions for temperature change and its economic impact in an analysis of climate change policy. I estimate the fraction of consumption w*(tau) that society would be willing to sacrifice to ensure that any increase in temperature at a future point is limited to tau. Using information on the distributions for temperature change and economic impact from studies assembled by the IPCC and from “integrated assessment models” (IAMs), I fit displaced gamma distributions for these variables. Unlike existing IAMs, I model economic impact as a relationship between temperature change and the growth rate of GDP as opposed to its level, so that warming has a permanent impact on future GDP. The fitted distributions for temperature change and economic impact generally yield values of w*(tau) below 2%, even for small values of tau, unless one assumes extreme parameter values and/or substantial shifts in the temperature distribution. These results are consistent with moderate abatement policies.

(291 K)

Published: Pindyck, Robert S., 2012. "Uncertain outcomes and climate change policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 289-303.

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Acknowledgments

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