Agent-based macroeconomics for the UK's Seventh Carbon Budget

Tom Youngman, Tim Lennox, M. Lopes Alves, Pirta Palola, Brendon Tankwa, Emma Bailey, Emilien Ravigne, Thijs Ter Horst, Benjamin Wagenvoort, Harry Lightfoot Brown, Jose Moran and Doyne Farmer

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Abstract: In June 2026, the UK government will set its carbon budget for the period 2038 to 2042, the seventh such carbon budget (CB7) since the Climate Change Act became law in 2008. For the first time, this carbon budget will be accompanied by a macroeconomic assessment of its impact on growth, employment, inflation and inequality. Researchers from the Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET) Oxford are working in partnership with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to deliver this assessment using our data-driven macroeconomic agent-based model (ABM). This extended abstract presents the work in progress towards this pioneering policymaking using our data-driven macroeconomic ABM. We are conducting our work in three work packages. By the time of the workshop, we hope to be able to present preliminary findings from the first two work packages. In WP1, we adapt an existing macro-ABM prototype and build a UK macroeconomic baseline. The main task for this is initialising the model with suitable UK household microdata. We present the options considered and the approach settled upon. In WP2, we conduct preliminary modelling that represents UK decarbonisation as an external shock to financial flows and technical coefficients. In order to present results in time to influence the June 2026 policy decision, this second work package exogenously forces the ABM to follow the CB7 green investment and associated technological change projections provided by the Climate Change Committee. Finally, we will implement more sophisticated social and technological learning packages in WP3, building our own projections of likely decarbonisation pathways that may diverge from UK government plans. For the workshop, we will present the progress of WP1 and WP2.

Date: 2026-02
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