Substitutability and the Cost of Climate Mitigation Policy

Yingying Lu () and David Stern

CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: We explore how and by how much the values of elasticities of substitution affect estimates of the cost of emissions reduction policies in computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. We use G-Cubed, an intertemporal CGE model, to carry out a sensitivity and factor decomposition analysis. Average abatement cost rises non-linearly as elasticities are reduced. Changes in the substitution elasticities between capital, labor, energy, and materials have a greater impact on mitigation costs than do inter-fuel elasticities of substitution. The former has more effect on business as usual emissions and the latter on average abatement costs. As elasticities are reduced, business as usual emissions and GDP growth also decrease so that there is not much variation in the total costs of reaching a given target across the parameter space. Our results confirm that the cost of climate mitigation policy is at most a few percent of global GDP.

Keywords: Elasticity of substitution; Mitigation policy; CGE models; G-Cubed; Sensitivity analysis; Decomposition analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C68 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-ene and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Substitutability and the Cost of Climate Mitigation Policy (2016)
Working Paper: Substitutability and the Cost of Climate Mitigation Policy (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:camaaa:2014-28

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