Beyond the Stern Review: Lessons from a risky venture at the limits of the cost–benefit analysis

Jean-Charles Hourcade, Philippe Ambrosi and Patrice Dumas
Additional contact information
Philippe Ambrosi: CIRED - centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper argues that debates amongst economists triggered by the Stern Review are partly relevant, focusing on key parameters translating real ethical issues, and partly misplaced in that they do not consider enough other determinants of climate change damages: i) the specifications of the utility function used for the assessments (preference for the environment, preference for smooth growth paths), ii) the interplay between uncertainty and the sequentiality of the decision, and iii) whether the growth engines behind the integrated assessment models can account for transient disequilibrium and sub-optimality. We derive some suggestions for any future research agenda in integrated assessment modelling, whatever the position of the analysts about the relevance of the intertemporal optimisation framework and the Bayesian approach to uncertainty in the climate affair.

Keywords: Integrated assessment model; Discounting; Damage assessment; Environmental value; Intragenerational equity; Social preference; Non-market impacts; Intergenerational equity; Adaptation; Irreversibility; Decision-making; Information value; Uncertainty; Cost–benefit analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://enpc.hal.science/hal-00716769v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Ecological Economics, 2009, 68 (10), pp.2479-2484. ⟨10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.04.011⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://enpc.hal.science/hal-00716769v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Beyond the Stern Review: Lessons from a risky venture at the limits of the cost-benefit analysis (2009)
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:hal:journl:hal-00716769

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.04.011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().