The Consequences of Uncertainty: Climate Sensitivity and Economic Sensitivity to the Climate

John Hassler (), Per Krusell and Conny Olovsson
Additional contact information
John Hassler: IIES, Stockholm University, University of Gothenburgh, CEPR and SEM

No 369, Working Paper Series from Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract: We construct an integrated assessment model with multiple energy sources-two fossil fuels and “green energy" - and use it to evaluate ranges of plausible estimates for the climate sensitivity as well as for the sensitivity of the economy to climate change. Rather than focusing on uncertainty explicitly, we look at extreme scenarios defined by the upper and lower limits given in available studies in the literature. We compare optimal policy with laissez faire and we point to the possible policy errors that could arise. By far the largest policy error arises when the climate policy is “overly passive"; “overly zealous" climate policy (i.e., a high carbon tax applied when climate change and its negative on the economy are very limited) does not hurt the economy much as there is considerable substitutability between fossil and non-fossil energy sources.

Keywords: Climate change; integrated assessment model; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E60 H23 O44 Q43 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2019-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-mac and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.riksbank.se/globalassets/media/rapport ... y-to-the-climate.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Consequences of Uncertainty: Climate Sensitivity and Economic Sensitivity to the Climate (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0369

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden) Sveriges Riksbank, SE-103 37 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lena Löfgren ().