Uncertain Outcomes and Climate Change Policy

38 Pages Posted: 18 Aug 2009 Last revised: 13 Mar 2022

See all articles by Robert S. Pindyck

Robert S. Pindyck

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Date Written: August 2009

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

Pindyck, Robert S., Uncertain Outcomes and Climate Change Policy (August 2009). NBER Working Paper No. w15259, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1454991

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