The Structure of Economic Modeling of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change: Grafting Gross Underestimation of Risk onto Already Narrow Science Models

Nicholas Stern

Journal of Economic Literature, 2013, vol. 51, issue 3, 838-59

Abstract: Scientists describe the scale of the risks from unmanaged climate change as potentially immense. However, the scientific models, because they omit key factors that are hard to capture precisely, appear to substantially underestimate these risks. Many economic models add further gross underassessment of risk because the assumptions built into the economic modeling on growth, damages and risks, come close to assuming directly that the impacts and costs will be modest and close to excluding the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. A new generation of models is needed in all three of climate science, impact and economics with a still stronger focus on lives and livelihoods, including the risks of large-scale migration and conflicts.

JEL-codes: C51 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.51.3.838
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (244)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jel.51.3.838 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/jel/ds/5103/JEL.51.3.838_ds.zip (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
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:aea:jeclit:v:51:y:2013:i:3:p:838-59

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().